Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 80 — Tuesday, October 13, 2015 (HTML) (2024)

2015 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 40th Parliament

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

10:00 a.m.

Tynehead Room 1 and 2, Sheraton Guildford Hotel
15269 104 Avenue, Surrey, B.C.

Present: Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Dan Ashton, MLA; Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Mike Morris, MLA; Claire Trevena, MLA; John Yap, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 10:01 a.m.

2. Opening remarks by Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA, Chair.

3. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

4. The Committee recessed from 1:06 p.m. to 1:36 p.m.

5. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 4:54 p.m.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2015

Issue No. 80

ISSN 1499-416X (Print)
ISSN 1499-4178 (Online)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2015

The committee met at 10:01 a.m.

[S. Hamilton in the chair.]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Scott Hamilton. I’m the MLA for Delta North and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

We’re an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly with a mandate to hold provincewide public consultations on the next provincial budget. The consultations are based on the budget consultation paper that was recently released by the Minister of Finance. The committee will issue a report by November 15, 2015, with recommendations for next year’s budget.

We’ve had to modify our planned schedule of in-person community meetings this year, as the Legislature was called back for a fall session that began on September 28. In order to accommodate as many presenters as possible, we’re holding public hearings in communities across the province through in-person sessions or via teleconference, video conference or Skype.

British Columbians are also invited to participate by sending in written, audio or video submissions or completing an on-line survey. You can make a submission or learn more about the consultation in general by visiting our webpage at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. We invite all British Columbians to make a submission and to contribute to this important process. For those of you in attendance today, thank you very much for your participation.

All public input will be carefully considered by the committee as it prepares its final report to the Legislative Assembly. Just a reminder that the deadline for submissions is Thursday, October 15, 2015.

Today’s meeting will consist of presentations from registered witnesses. Each presenter will have ten minutes to speak, followed by five minutes for questions from the committee. We have a very full agenda today, so I really have to make sure everybody adheres to that. If time permits, we will also have an open-mike period at the end of the meeting. Five minutes are allotted for each presenter. If you wish to speak, please register with Stephanie at the information table.

Today’s meeting is being recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. A complete transcript of the proceedings will be posted to the committee’s website. All of the meetings are also broadcast as live audio via our website.

I’ll now ask the committee members to introduce themselves, and I’ll start to my right with John.

J. Yap: Good morning. John Yap, the MLA for Richmond-Steveston.

M. Morris: Hi and good morning. Mike Morris, MLA for Prince George–Mackenzie.

D. Ashton: Good morning. Dan Ashton, Penticton.

E. Foster: Good morning. Eric Foster, Vernon-Monashee.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Good morning. Carole James, Victoria–Beacon Hill.

G. Heyman: Good morning. George Heyman, Vancouver-Fairview.

S. Chandra Herbert: Hello, Surrey. Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA, Vancouver–West End, Coal Harbour.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I will take the liberty of introducing two members that will be a little late in joining us. To my right, Simon Gibson, the MLA for Abbotsford-Mission, and the MLA for North Island, Claire Trevena.

Also assisting the committee today, to my left, is Susan Sourial and, over at the back, Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office. Ian Battle and Alexandrea Hursey from Hansard Services are also here to record the proceedings, as I mentioned.

Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. I didn’t see you sitting there quietly in the corner. Bruce Ralston, the MLA for Surrey-Whalley.

Without further delay, I’ll call on our friends at the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union — Stephanie Smith and Simon Kelly.

Good morning. As I mentioned, ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to give you a heads-up when there are about two minutes left to go. Then you can conclude your thoughts, and we’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

Presentations

S. Smith: Good morning, and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with the committee this morning. As mentioned, I’m Stephanie Smith, president of the B.C. Government and Services Employees Union. Our union represents more than 65,000 members who work in all areas of direct government service, the broader public sector and the private sector.

[1005]

Our submission builds on our members’ expertise as skilled workers and community members. We also have a detailed written version containing research-based support for our submission.

Our submission will focus on five key areas where we call on government for additional resources. We will also identify additional sources of revenue to finance proposed spending increases.
[ Page 1920 ]

Firstly, the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation is the critical point of access for services to people living with disabilities, physical or mental health challenges, addiction and the impacts of poverty. An increased reliance on technology, long call centre wait times, complicated on-line resources, regional office closures and reduced office hours mean that clients are increasingly unable to access in-person service. Administrative service staff shortages also lead to delays in service delivery and contribute to unmanageable workloads and stress.

While MSDSI has received a 5.6 percent funding increase since 2012-2013, during that same period, ministry staffing levels have dropped by 5.7 percent. We urge government to substantially increase funding to this ministry, to reopen local offices, reinstate full operating hours and increase front-line staff to re-establish in-person service for clients.

We propose removing the eight-year freeze on social assistance rates as a minimum to retroactively account for inflation since 2007. As you know, B.C. is one of the most expensive places to live. An increase to the $375 shelter allowance is long overdue. We also urge the government to cancel the $18 million proposed cut to income assistance funding in 2017-18.

Second, 2015 was an extremely destructive local forest fire season. More than 1,800 wildfires raged in B.C., burning over 300,000 hectares of land and destroying personal property. The cost to fight wildfires this year is estimated to top $380 million. The average cost for wildfire fighting since 2004 is $190 million a year.

The incidence and severity of wildfires is predicted to increase. FLNRO Minister Steve Thomson acknowledged this when he said in July that wildfire activity is increasing and that our firefighting capacity is becoming challenged. Premier Clark also acknowledged this in July.

The wildfire branch budget for direct fire has been frozen at $63 million since 2011-2012. A meaningful commitment to expand the wildfire branch budget is required to reflect our new reality and to provide adequate regular and seasonal staffing levels; to increase support for seasonal wildfire fighters, who do a very dangerous job; and to commit to a long-term strategy to deal with the effects of climate change on our forests.

Persistent underfunding of MCFD has deeply impacted the delivery of services to vulnerable children and youth. This has been documented in reports by the Representative for Children and Youth and by our union. Since 2008, MCFD funding has reduced significantly, despite growth in demand for services. Inadequate staffing levels have created unmanageable workloads, health and safety problems, stress, burnout and medical leave.

Although budget 2015-16 showed a $22.5 million funding increase, this amount still falls far short of the $44 million cut from the ministry budget since 2008 and remains insufficient. We renew our call for substantial additional funding for core MCFD services, a comprehensive staffing strategy to fill vacancies and clear workload standards in the ministry.

Because of the continued overrepresentation of aboriginal children in care, BCGEU calls for an additional core business area in MCFD specific to aboriginal services along with designated funding for mental health and special needs services for aboriginal children, youth and families.

Four — in 2007, the B.C. government took action on global climate change by adopting legislated goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, since 2012, further increases to the carbon tax have ended, leaving the rate frozen at $30 per tonne. We believe that in order to meet the province’s goal for GHG emissions reductions by 2020, regular annual increases should be reinstated, rising to $50 a tonne by 2019. This would generate approximately $2.2 billion annually if expanded to exempt industries.

The tax should no longer be revenue-neutral but should be restructured to be less regressive, expanding the low-income climate action credit and introducing clawbacks more slowly. An expanded tax credit would extend assistance to the bottom 80 percent of households, ensuring the most benefit to those most in need.

[1010]

The BCGEU is also increasingly concerned by the continued lack of front-line staffing for management and production of our natural resource ministries. Staffing levels have been cut by nearly 30 percent since 2001. The number of natural resource officers was cut by 43 percent between 2009 and 2013. Compliance and enforcement inspections have dropped to one-third the level of a decade ago. The number of conservation field officers has been reduced by 10 percent since 2002. We call on the government to increase staff resources in Environment and resource ministries and, again, fill existing vacancies.

An aging demographic is putting pressure on BC’s health authorities and the province’s acute health care system. Quality home care for seniors and people with disabilities allows people to stay healthier and live at home longer, reducing demands on the more costly acute care health system. While clients have more complex health care needs, more than half of our community health workers are casually employed, with a median annual income averaging $28,000 a year. This and undesirable work schedules have created a serious recruitment and retention problem in the industry.

Of particular concern is the $26 million in public funding given to the United Way of the Lower Mainland for the Better at Home program, which provides basic seniors care using volunteers and low-wage contract workers. An additional $10 million commitment per year has been made by government for this program.

The BCGEU is deeply concerned by the deteriorating working conditions faced by community health work-
[ Page 1921 ]
ers and by the social, health and economic impacts on communities and clients caused by defunding and deprofessionalization of home support. We restate our call for greater direct public sector investment in this critical area of seniors health. We call on government to disclose the full amount of funding to non-professional and volunteer-based home support services and to redistribute these funds to B.C.’s regional health authorities.

Our revenue options. For several years, government has emphasized the need to control public expenditure through fiscal restraint. The problem, however, is not excessive spending but access to public revenue. This is an issue of choice, which has led to increased inequality and underfunded public services. We believe government has an obligation to adequately fund public services and to make the tax system more fair. B.C. currently has some of the lowest income tax rates in Canada. Here are our ideas for generating revenue to pay for public services.

Retain and make permanent the temporary top personal income tax bracket: 16.8 percent on incomes over $150,000, which is comparable to or lower than other Canadian provinces. This will bring in an estimated $175 million per year.

Increase the current top personal tax rate to 17 percent, assuming expiry of the temporary tax rate, and create two additional upper income tax brackets: 20 percent on incomes between $150,000 and $200,000 and 22 percent on incomes over $200,000. These increases would raise nearly $1 billion per year.

Restore the corporate income tax rate to the 2002 level of 13.5 percent. This would generate up to $700 million in additional revenue, and eliminating corporate tax deductions would raise an additional $300 million.

Phase out costly and inefficient subsidies to the oil and gas industry, like the infrastructure royalty credit program, which has subsidized roads and pipelines to oil and gas wells by $840 million since 2004.

In summary, the BCGEU challenges government to implement meaningful and viable revenue improvement options and restore fairness to our economy. These revenue measures alone could raise upwards of $3 billion annually in revenue to support necessary, quality public services for British Colombians.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation, and I will go to the committee for questions.

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for a wide-ranging presentation. My question — I have a lot, but I’ll just ask one — has to do with home support. I recently had a request to my constituency office from a constituent who requires quite extensive home support in order to be able to live at home because of his condition. That said, it’s still a better quality of life and appears to be cheaper than the alternatives. Yet he was told very clearly by the agency that they could no longer support that level of care.

At the same time, I also had a couple of home support workers come into my office to talk about a fairly massive layoff of workers from one of the agencies in Vancouver, some of them with up to 20 years of seniority. It seems beyond me how workers can be let go in a program that is cost-effective and why decisions are being made to cut back on home care services when they’re actually less expensive than the alternatives.

[1015]

Feel free to comment, but mostly, I wanted to ask you if you have studies that show the comparative advantage of home support and home care versus residential care or periodic trips to emergency. That would be very useful to have at the committee before October 15.

S. Kelly: Yes. I mean, I think what we’ve cited in here is a report from 2012 from the B.C. Ombudsperson that has identified the high costs of acute care for those who had their home support services cut on average $4,100 annually. There are additional sources of research and evidence available, primarily from other jurisdictions, and we’d be happy to provide additional sources.

G. Heyman: The more that’s sent in, the more it will appear on the record.

S. Hamilton (Chair): And just to reiterate, October 15 is the deadline for those submissions.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I just wanted to ask about workers in the Ministry of Social Development — income assistance workers.

You’ve come out with a report around people working in the child welfare system, which I think gave some very good stats and really fills in some of the gaps that are there. I wondered whether you’ve done any kind of research on income assistance workers and some of the challenges in the office.

Just anecdotally, in my own constituency office, we’ve had individuals who come in talking about some of the challenges of violence, some of the anger issues with the long waits, with the lack of ability to be able to see workers. Often the workers are the ones who face the challenges. I just wondered if there’s any kind of research for that area.

S. Kelly: Yes. Again, as part of our original consultations for the Choose Children campaign, which, as you noted, has focused mainly on MCFD…. Through those consultations in 2014, we did conduct surveys focusing on workers in MSDSI, and we had held a number of regional consultations that were well-attended by, mainly, employment assistance workers from that ministry.

Through that, we did gather a lot of anecdotal evidence identifying specifically what you describe — incidences of violence and short-staffing, both as far as administrative services and front-line income assistance workers as
[ Page 1922 ]
well. We did include some of those findings in our first Choose Children report.

Those findings were also cited in BCPIAC’s Access Denied report, which is cited in our submission today, and that report is much more expansive in terms of the experiences of those workers and what’s happening in this ministry in those offices.

S. Chandra Herbert: One of the things you’ve raised was the issue of conservation officers, of people out, and FLNRO officers and so on — just the huge decline in numbers. We’ve seen, of course, a large uptick in the number of complaints in a number of the areas for the report poachers and polluters line. I was out in the Kootenays this weekend, and that’s all I could hear. All I heard from ecotourism businesses was that they don’t know if there are any conservation officers in their jurisdiction, because they can never seem to get them.

What do your members tell you that leads to, when you can’t get somebody to come out to a call, when one officer is expected to serve an area the size of France or something like that? What does that lead to in terms of losses, whether it’s for our natural resources or wealth? Any anecdotes, just so we could visualize what that means?

S. Smith: Well, what we actually know is that, in actual fact, there are some unstaffed areas around the province because single-officer offices were deemed to be unsafe and potentially against Workers Compensation. Officers were moved from one office to another, so there are fully unstaffed areas.

Anecdotally, what I can tell you is that if, for example, there’s a wildlife incursion call, what ends up happening is that local policing have to respond to the call, because there’s no conservation officer. Of course, that’s not their jurisdiction or what they should do.

In terms of dollar loss and revenue, again I will turn to Simon, who is our researcher.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Could I take that on notice, if you don’t mind? Can we get that information? We’re actually out of time, and I have another presenter.

S. Smith: Oh, absolutely.

S. Hamilton (Chair): But that can form part of the public record, if you don’t mind, Spencer?

Thank you very much for taking the time to present to the committee. I appreciate it, as always.

S. Smith: Thank you very much for having us.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Next we have, from the Surrey Board of Trade, Anita Huberman.

Anita, welcome. It’s good to see you again.

[1020]

Anita, ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes left, so you can conclude your thoughts. Then I’ll go to the committee for questions. If that works for you, the floor is yours.

A. Huberman: Thank you very much.

Good morning, members of the committee. I’m Anita Huberman, CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to present to you. We have an immense amount of respect for the work that this committee does to ensure that the priorities of British Columbians are incorporated into our provincial budget being released next year.

The Surrey Board of Trade is an influential board of trade, chamber of commerce in B.C. We have 2,100 business members. That represents around 6,000 business contacts and around 60,000 employees in and around Surrey.

In terms of population, I’m sure you know that Surrey is destined to be the largest city in British Columbia in less than 15 years, and the South Fraser region itself is now home to just under one million residents — over 19 percent of B.C.’s population. By 2041, our population will grow by 50 percent, from 500,000 to 750,000 for Surrey. We are hoping to add 150,000 new jobs.

The rapid and sustained growth of Surrey and the South Fraser region is very unique in B.C. It brings a number of challenges and opportunities.

On the topic of education. Imagine a preschool classroom in Surrey where four-year-olds are getting ready for storytime. Then cross the globe to an office in Bangalore, the capital of India’s burgeoning high-tech industry, where engineers are designing a gas turbine system. These two sites are literally half a world apart, but a growing number of business leaders think that there is a direct connection.

Global competition from India and elsewhere, advancing technologies and changing demographics are convincing more and more employers, business associations like the Surrey Board of Trade and corporate philanthropists to invest in classrooms and advocate for improvements in performance, starting with our youngest learners. The return on that effort, as we see it, in what is normally called early childhood development, is to develop the workforce that we need to maintain an edge on innovation.

The board of trade urges the provincial government to continue their investments in early childhood education. Early childhood education is like the foundation of a house, and a strong house cannot be built on a weak foundation.

I also ask the committee to invest in essential skills: literacy, math, etc. Our educational curriculum must be higher than it is. Business is advocating for both education standards and accountability for results as a way to raise achievement and improve the competitiveness of our workforce.
[ Page 1923 ]

Investing in people will be B.C.’s most important economic investment. B.C. and Canada will face a significant shortage of skilled workers. Canada’s innovation strategy, developed with input from Canadians coast to coast, including us, under the auspices of Industry Canada, recognizes that people are a country’s greatest resource in the global knowledge-based economy. In today’s economy, post-secondary education and training are already required for most new jobs.

In Surrey and at the Surrey Board of Trade, we believe and know that education drives local economic development. Together we need to focus on the key leverage points where politically feasible investments of money and political capital can yield large changes in educational quality as well as access to education in Surrey. Our Surrey school district has more than 700 more students than anticipated this year, after Labour Day, in Surrey in our K-to-12 schools.

In the past, you may know that the board of trade released two research reports for both Simon Fraser University and Kwantlen Polytechnic University. They’re turning away students in Surrey. You will hear shortly from them on the actual specificities of how they’re turning away students and how that is hurting our economy.

[1025]

Surrey is a very rare case in B.C. when it comes to our education. The Surrey Board of Trade asks you, the province, for a dialogue and discussion on innovative reallocation of budget dollars to serve our universities. In the end, this will serve to enhance our city’s economic development goals and support our industry cluster creations that we’re doing right here in our city.

Under the topic of health care, this weekend we’re advocating at our national convention for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce a resolution on PharmaCare. It’s included in your package. We ask you to review the resolution and add your support to the plan. We also ask the province to engage in a study on the health care infrastructure needs in Surrey as they relate to population needs.

On the topic of transportation, we’re seeking provincial leadership and commitment to the light rail project planned for Surrey. The board of trade continues to strongly advocate for a comprehensive and fair road-pricing policy for the Lower Mainland and, perhaps, for the whole of the province. We urge the province to ensure that light rail is the preferred option for Surrey, not SkyTrain.

I am the chair of Surrey’s Light Rail Links Coalition, based right here in Surrey. We are like-minded individuals and groups advocating for LRT to connect communities south of the Fraser. Our goal is to demonstrate to you, the B.C. government, and to the federal government, as well as TransLink, that there is widespread support for LRT. LRT will not only connect communities; it will create pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods. It will integrate with new developments and businesses.

LRT is used around the world. It is considered a high-quality rapid transit for a number of reasons, listed in your package there.

We know that residents and businesses in Surrey want LRT. With Surrey’s proven abilities to attract development and support economic growth, LRT can shape Surrey into the province’s next major metropolitan centre.

Under the area of social policy, social housing and social service needs, particularly in Surrey, will lead to increased social and crime-related costs unless resources are allocated. We have a large number of not-for-profit agencies that can help the province and could be funded as partners.

Under the area of arts, the Surrey Board of Trade as well as our city of Surrey are committed to creating a creative economy in our city, and we’re asking the B.C. government, in this budget, to invest in arts and culture. In a McKinsey and Co. report commissioned for Business for the Arts in 2008, it indicates some relevant factors listed in your package, but I just wanted to highlight some of them.

Arts can have a significant economic impact on local communities. Arts education helps children develop higher-level skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. We recently brought in the Sarah McLachlan School of Music in Surrey to help our at-risk youth so that they can be productive members of our communities. And arts contribute to innovation within our city.

The Surrey Board of Trade is committed to continuing our work and advocating for and working toward a positive fiscal outcome for Surrey.

I welcome your questions.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Terrific. Thank you very much.

I will go to the committee and find out if there are any questions.

G. Heyman: Thank you for another wide-ranging presentation.

I want to focus on transit a little bit. I understand why Surrey is really doing everything it can, with the failure of the plebiscite, to push ahead with light rail. But I’m wondering if you have an opinion or a thought on the benefits of continuing with a broad-based regional integrated plan.

The second question. I’ve heard estimates…. I think, at one forum I was at, former mayor Dianne Watts said that congestion was costing the provincial economy about $1 billion a year. I’ve heard estimates of as high as $1.5 billion. If you have access to any economic studies that quantify that and could submit them to the committee by the 15th of October, that would be very useful, on that particular issue.

A. Huberman: I can get those to you.

When it comes to a regionally coordinated plan for transportation, we are huge advocates of that. I think the
[ Page 1924 ]
main thing for Surrey is that we have been left behind. It is Surrey’s turn in terms of transit and transportation investments, and I know that many of you know that.

[1030]

We do believe in a regional, coordinated plan, not only north of the Fraser but also south of the Fraser, and that extends all the way to Abbotsford.

And I can get the costs of congestion to you. Thank you, George.

S. Gibson: I had the privilege of working in Surrey for almost eight years. I think, as an outsider now living in Abbotsford…. Maybe you could comment on this. The growth of Surrey is exciting and dynamic, but it also complicates the community sense and the neighbourhoods. When I worked in Surrey, I worked in Cloverdale. We said, “Yeah, we work in Cloverdale,” and somebody says: “I work in this area.”

Could you comment on that maybe a little bit in terms of marketing the economic viability of the community so Surrey doesn’t just end up being sort of an amorphous blob of a community and less of a neighbourhood — the feeling people have in identifying where they live in Surrey? I wonder if you want to comment on that a little bit.

A. Huberman: We are working with the city and our new mayor, Linda Hepner, on ensuring that the city of Surrey is cultivated as a brand and promoted as a brand. But in order for the citizens themselves to be connected as a community, transportation is the ultimate foundation, we believe. Connecting the communities through LRT, for example, building densification and building opportunities are really the key foundation in ensuring that connectivity.

It is a reality that there are now six to seven core town centres, but we’re doing everything we can to change the mindsets and ensure citizens are brand ambassadors of Surrey as a whole.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you for the presentation and thank you for the very interesting action around a national pharmacare program and your work there. I’m just curious about what response you’re getting from other chambers across the country. That’s one question.

The other one is…. I know the Surrey Board of Trade has been outspoken in support of child care and certainly has looked at the $10-a-day child care program. Now, I don’t see that here. Obviously, there are many things to raise. I’m just curious if you’re still pushing that idea as well.

A. Huberman: On the topic of pharmacare, we are going to, hopefully, be getting full support from all of the 450 chambers and boards of trade. We have the support of our policy committee at the head office. We’ve received just one form of complaint — from the Saskatoon chamber — but we do anticipate that we’ll get full national support.

And yes, we still support the $10-a-day child care plan.

M. Morris: I’m just curious. You’re advocating for LRT. I’ve ridden the system when I lived in Calgary and whatnot. What’s that based on in comparison to a SkyTrain concept? Is it just cost, or are there other benefits to an LRT system versus an elevated system?

A. Huberman: It’s cost. It’s connecting our communities. It’s the livability. My light rail coalition — we are a group of businesses. There are developers, business organizations, not-for-profits. It’s about ensuring, as Simon had alluded to, the connectivity with our city, the economic development opportunities that we see that are so vibrant in other LRT cities such as Calgary.

D. Ashton: I just have a follow-up on that. Do you preserve corridors, in new development taking place, for that opportunity? Are there corridors being preserved within the municipality for future transportation needs?

A. Huberman: For the LRT piece, yes.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much, Ms. Huberman. I appreciate you taking the time to present to the committee.

Okay, next we have the Alzheimer Society of British Columbia — Barbara Lindsay. Good morning. And you brought some company along with you. Welcome.

As you’re getting settled…. Ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes to go so you can conclude your thoughts. Then I’ll go to the committee for questions. If you could introduce yourself for the record, as well, please.

M. Howard: Good morning, everyone. My name is Maria Howard. I’m the CEO of the Alzheimer Society of British Columbia. This is Barbara Lindsay. She is the director of advocacy and education for the society too. We thank you very much for having us here today. We have greatly enjoyed coming and presenting to the committee in the past and sharing the work that we are doing through the society.

[1035]

We greatly appreciate the support that you’ve provided, too, in the ongoing discussions and support we’ve had through the B.C. government in terms of financial support but even, way beyond that, in collaborations and support in helping British Columbians in our province who are impacted by Alzheimer’s and other related dementia.

We have provided some documentation for you today which talks about our First Link program, and I’ll be talking about that in a few minutes.
[ Page 1925 ]

I’ll start by saying the B.C. Alzheimer Society is focused on a vision that would look at a world without Alzheimer’s and dementia. That is what we would say is our stretch goal. But, really, our mission is to alleviate and to decrease the impact of Alzheimer’s for people in our communities around the province.

We do that through three ways. We have our First Link programs and services, which we’ll talk about today. We do that through our education, which is really focused around creating dementia-friendly communities. A community can be anywhere from a city, a town. It can be a library. It can be a book club. It can be a corporation.

We also raise money for research, money that is very important to look for a cause and a cure, which still don’t really stand out there in a very definite way about why we are seeing such a growth of Alzheimer’s and other related dementias. So we raise money for research in our own province as well as on a national level.

First Link, though, is our way that we reach out to British Columbians. It is a program that we’ve had in existence for ten years, and throughout those ten years, we’ve been in a great partnership with the B.C. government through the Ministry of Health to offer this to people across the province. Over the ten years that we’ve offered First Link, we’ve had about $10 million come from the ministry. This has helped us to create the program and expand it through the province, which we are still working on today.

The focus of First Link is early intervention. It’s the early outreach to people and families who have had a diagnosis and don’t know what to do. We hear the story so many times. “I’ve just received a diagnosis. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t know who to ask. I really don’t know what to do.” So many people, when they don’t know what to do, unfortunately, don’t do anything except worry, get scared and see their life begin to unravel in front of them.

First Link is the opportunity for health care professionals or for families themselves to refer themselves to our program and to get instant help by connecting into our dementia help line, with a trained professional who begins to walk them through the steps that they need to know in order to make decisions about how this is going to affect their lives. Some people need that information now and need to act now. Some people need to take that information and go away and try to figure out what to do with it and then come back.

First Link is focused on proactive outreach. When we connect with families, we know that this is a hard conversation that has so many elements that reaches on so many levels. So many people can’t actually talk about it, so the program is designed with a proactive outreach. We keep outreaching to people. We keep reaching out to them through phone calls, through e-mails, through newsletters, knowing that at some point, they will be able to begin to have the conversation. We don’t wait for them to come back to us. We keep reaching out to them.

When families are ready to start to participate, depending upon the stage at which the individual who has the diagnosis is — whether it’s at an early stage, a middle or it’s nearing more of a severe part — we have different programs to help, again, the individual and the families. At the early stages, we have our Minds in Motion program, which is a wonderful exercise and social program that we run through community centres throughout the province. It’s an opportunity for the individual and, most likely, a spouse or a family member to come, participate in fitness and exercise and then have a social opportunity to sit and talk about what is happening for them.

As the person progresses through the disease…. Everybody goes through it very differently, even though there are still some stigmas and myths about what it means to have Alzheimer’s. We have a family caregiver series that continues to support families and to have support groups so that they can know what they can do and how they can reach out. A person who is 85 and has a partner who is going through that with them is very different than someone who is 50 and has kids and a spouse who is working. Those families both have significant needs, but they have very different needs. They both need support, and they both need help.

Then, as people may start to get to the point where they can’t provide care at home and they have to transition into a care home…. That’s another transition. It’s another stage of grieving that the family has to go through. Again, that person may be 85. That person also may be 55. Our society reaches out with programs and services to help that family.

[1040]

First Link is taking the family and the situation and the individual who has the diagnosis and recognizing that everybody is going to go on that journey in a different way. The one thing that is consistently the same is that they need help. They need support. They need information so that they can make decisions at the earliest point as opposed to at the crisis moment.

Last year First Link had over 11,000 people participating in the program. We were making over 4,000 calls throughout the year. Over 8,500 people were receiving information from us. That’s a lot of people. But when we know that there are over 70,000 people in this province who are touched by the disease, it’s a really small number, which means that we need to continue to expand the program.

The expansion of First Link. The partnership that we’ve been working on with the Ministry of Health is to expand the program throughout the province. We have 15 offices right now throughout B.C. — community offices where we have staff who run support groups, who do Minds in Motion community centre programs, who run a number of different webinars and telecommunication for families that can be in a rural area or who can be in a metropolitan area.
[ Page 1926 ]

It also is really focused on beginning to reach out to the physicians in those communities, who also are a real key part here. We need to have the doctors at the table. They need to be participating in helping their patients get the care that they need.

At the end of this fiscal year, our contract with the Ministry of Health comes to the end of its term. As I had mentioned earlier, over the ten years that we’ve been providing First Link, we’ve received around $10 million. Our hope is to continue that conversation. We want to continue the conversation with the Ministry of Health to continue to expand this program, because it is the right thing to do for British Columbians, and it’s also the right thing to do for our country.

B.C. is setting an example for Canada to drive forward the support we need for people with Alzheimer’s. Not only are we one of the provinces who has a provincial dementia action plan, which the Ministry of Health is actively working on to revise, we are also the only province in this country that has a B.C. Legislative Assembly who has been trained as dementia-friendly. That is significant. Those elected individuals came forward and said: “We commit to this, and we want to be role models.” It is a wonderful story to tell, because it’s how we get people to come forward.

I just want to end on a little story that I think really tells why this is so significant. We have a family who received a diagnosis of dementia, of Alzheimer’s, and this individual was fully aware of what was happening. It was a very hard decision for this family to take in. They were both retired but only newly retired. They had been planning a lot of different things, like anybody does when they hit post-retirement, as they say.

This individual was still driving. He had gone out to visit a friend. He was coming home, and because it was starting to get dark, he could no longer find the visual cues of where he was. So he was lost. He didn’t know what to do, and he was driving. He did what he thought was the best thing to do. He pulled into a gas station that was closed, and he phoned his wife and said: “I’m lost. I don’t know where I am.” She said: “Oh my gosh. I don’t know where you are either.”

The two of them didn’t know what to do. So their plan…. He slept in his car overnight, till the morning. The plan was that he was supposed to call her and then say to her: “It’s light now. I can drive home.” But he didn’t. He woke up, turned his car on and drove to church. So this individual was lost, on his own, not sure where he was, driving a vehicle.

His wife was at home. She had no idea where he was. They have three grown-up kids. Nobody ever phoned the children. No one phoned 911. It wasn’t until the family had this conversation a month later that people said: “Wow. This has to change.”

We have to have people feel strong enough to be able to call 911, call their family, not be scared of stigma; have people safe driving on the streets, who aren’t wandering, who become a safety issue for other people in the community. We have to have individuals to feel safe to actually go to a store and say, “I’m lost. I need help” — not go and call someone who can’t help. It’s really a significant thing, because it does touch all of us.

Through First Link, we can make a difference. Slowly, we can start reaching out to people and helping them understand that there are people who are there to help. There are people on all levels who will help. With some basic information, some good decision-making skills, we can still continue to have quality of life for people who have a diagnosis. Families can continue to feel safe and not anxious and recognize they are not alone.

I thank you for your time today, and I look forward to a continual conversation. We really welcome your support in supporting us as we go forward with the conversations with the Ministry of Health.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you. Excellent presentation, Ms. Howard. As a matter of fact, you distracted me so much by your presentation that I forgot to give you the two-minute warning. You hit the ten minutes right on the button.

[1045]

E. Foster: Thank you very much for your presentation.

On Saturday, we had a celebration of life for a very close friend of mine who passed away and suffered from Alzheimer’s. He was 66 years old, in perfect health, no particular reason…. At this time, I’d like to pass along a thank-you from his family. I happened to know you were going to be here. You did a tremendous job for them, so thank you very much for that.

My question is on the science of it. Do you get involved in the research and that sort of thing, or are you just in the business of helping people that have been diagnosed?

M. Howard: In terms of research, we certainly raise significant funds. We raise over half a million a year to provide to research. But we do get involved by ensuring that families and people who are touched by the disease continue to have that voice in research. One of the great things that’s happening in research right now is that researchers are beginning to recognize they can’t just look for a cure and a cause isolated in the lab. They need the voice of families at the table with them, understanding.

What we do know is…. If you think about the drugs, as a great example. Even if you find some type of a cure, it may not work for families, or it may not help. We talk about the pipeline that reaches between the research and the people on the street. Our society helps very much in the middle there, where we look to connect those voices and connect researchers and people and families together so that, hopefully, when we do find something, it actually becomes practical and meaningful.
[ Page 1927 ]

E. Foster: Thanks again for what you’re doing.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I just wanted to recognize the dementia-friendly communities workshops. We did ours a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks, Barbara, for being there.

I just want to encourage other MLAs, if they haven’t done one yet, to look at it in their communities. A side piece that I think was important to us and that we saw after the meeting was the number of family members who came. This gave them a safe place to be talking about dementia and Alzheimer’s. They didn’t have to go to the society. They were at a general meeting. It was just talking about how they can support people with dementia in the community.

We had two sisters there whose parent is struggling. We had a husband and wife whose mother is struggling. They now have made referrals, and they are now going to the society for some support. So I just wanted to encourage others to take it up and also to say that the side benefit I really saw was an ability to connect people in a safe way when they weren’t quite ready yet to be able to make that connection to the society. It was wonderful to see.

J. Yap: Thank you for the work that you do. As someone whose family was recently touched by dementia, I really appreciate the work that you do, the advocacy that you do.

It strikes me — your comments in regard to the stigma that’s still attached to the disease kind of generally where illnesses involving the mind or mental capacity are concerned…. What is the one thing that we can do as a society to try to overcome that stigma, in your view?

M. Howard: I think the one thing is to talk about it. It’s to give people the confidence that they can continue to be themselves and manage through their limitations or their challenges without being judged in places where, really, judgment shouldn’t be. That is the whole definition of a community, whether that’s a store and you have to put the change on the table because you can’t tell the difference between a nickel and a quarter. So it really is dialogue. It’s continual open dialogue.

We always hear people say that if you want to put a message out, you say it 50 times and then you do it 50 more. That’s really what it is. I think people who are in leadership and role model positions and who are not afraid to tell their stories to others are so important, because it gives people the confidence that they also can share their story and that they’re not going to be rejected, that people are going to help. So dialogue is really the most critical part.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for taking the time to present, Ms. Howard, Ms. Lindsay. Thank you again for the work that you do.

Next we have Chuck Keeling, Great Canadian Gaming Corp.

Mr. Keeling, good to see you again. As you’re getting settled, I’ll let you know: ten minutes for the presentation. I’ll give you a wave with a couple of minutes left. You can conclude your thoughts. Then we’ll go to the committee for questions. If you’re ready, the floor is yours.

[1050]

C. Keeling: You bet. I certainly appreciate your time today. It was suggested to me that I literally come in and read my script. I’m not used to doing that, and I notice that the previous speaker did not subscribe to that same theory. I’m sure you’re in for a riveting ten minutes here.

I’m here on behalf of Great Canadian Gaming Corp., the operator of nine multifaceted gaming properties across the province. We also operate gaming properties in Nova Scotia, Washington state and Ontario. We just completed the acquisition of Casino New Brunswick in Moncton.

Several weeks ago we were very proud to announce that we were the successful bidder for the opportunity to operate three gaming properties in Ontario. It’s notable that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, the Crown agent that operates casinos on behalf of the province of Ontario, decided three years ago to privatize their operations. Great Canadian is the very first gaming operator to be awarded that opportunity, as part of that process.

We believe this is a significant validation of the type of model that exists here in B.C., where the provincial Lottery Corporation maintains the management of the industry but contracts operational services to companies like Great Canadian.

We’ve been in business for almost 35 years, and we’re proudly based here in B.C. With our history in this province, we’ve been an important stakeholder in the development of the B.C. gaming model, which I’ll elaborate on momentarily. We’re a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange, with a market cap of approximately $1.2 billion.

But we like to think we’re more than just a gaming company. We operate multiple non-gaming amenities, whether hotels, theatres, conference facilities, etc. We’ve placed emphasis in the last ten years on broadening and emphasizing these amenities for the modern marketplace through development of our theatres, the Hard Rock rebrand of our Coquitlam property and the soon-to-be Elements casino rebrand for our property right here in Surrey.

We employ 3,200 people in the province, with a payroll of approximately $125 million. Perhaps just as importantly, our staff represent the following: just under 400 different professional positions, with, literally, a 50-50 gender split and 80 different languages and dialects spoken. One-third have been with our company for ten
[ Page 1928 ]
years or more, and they represent an average of 42, so they’re raising families here in the province.

Although our human resources expenditures are our largest investment, we spend significantly on vendors and capital in our properties. Last year, through our B.C. properties, we spent $151 million with 1,300 vendors and over $5.2 million in property tax. We’ve invested over $800 million in capital developments and acquisitions costs in this province in the last ten years.

Great Canadian remains the largest gaming operator. We currently account for 39 percent of the province’s casino revenue, largely due to the success of River Rock Casino Resort. Additionally, Great Canadian operates both horse racetracks in the province: Hastings Racecourse in Vancouver, for thoroughbred racing; and Fraser Downs racetrack and casino, for standardbred racing, here in Surrey. Horse racing is also an important component of the province’s agricultural economy and supports thousands across the province.

Equally important is where industry money goes. In total, Great Canadian last year generated over $750 million in B.C., with a net contribution to the BCLC of approximately $530 million. In other words, we only retain one-third of gaming revenue. From that share, we have to pay all expenses associated with our operations — building them, payroll costs, marketing, maintenance, etc.

As part of the province’s agreement to share gaming revenue with host municipalities, our operations have generated, in total, just under $400 million for nine B.C. communities. That revenue has been invested in infrastructure like Richmond’s Olympic oval, a fire hall and stadium in Coquitlam, an arts centre in Dawson Creek and a library in greater Victoria.

The province should be equally proud of its community gaming grant program, which annually dedicates $135 million per year to over 5,000 non-profits across the province.

Finally, Great Canadian is proud of the fact that we invest over $2 million in our communities annually and, perhaps more importantly, that we supported 1,200 non-profits and charities last year, both financially and non-financially.

In a totality, it’s easy to overlook the importance of the revenue generated by the industry for the provincial treasury. It amounts to just under 3 percent of the province’s entire budget — more than the fuel tax, the property transfer tax, B.C. Hydro, the Liquor Distribution Branch, ICBC and royalties from forestry and natural gas.

[1055]

The model for the gaming industry in the province is a positive one for British Columbians for other reasons — primarily because the B.C. model is one of the most profitable for a provincial treasury in Canada, with a return of approximately 53 percent. This number represents what is generated for the province after BCLC’s operating costs and what is paid to us as operators.

This is only eclipsed by Alberta — and only achieved there because of video lottery terminals, similar to slot machines, in restaurants, bars and lounges operating across that province. B.C. is able to realize such a margin, largely, by paying gaming operators like Great Canadian some of the lowest operating commissions in North America. And the 53 percent return here in B.C. compares favourably to Ontario, with an approximate return of 30 percent to their treasury, and to Quebec, with an approximate return of 22 percent.

Moreover, B.C. employs a unique capital reimbursem*nt program that provides an incentive for gaming operators like Great Canadian to invest further in their facilities to ensure they reflect the tastes and expectations of the modern marketplace.

But the marketplace in B.C. is now relatively mature. There are casinos in most major cities in the province, while many smaller communities have what is called a community gaming centre, usually featuring bingo, food and beverage facilities and a smaller number of slot machines than what you would find in casinos. As a result, meaningful growth is no longer a certainty. Although we continue to have a positive relationship with the B.C. Lottery Corporation as the marketplace managers, we think there are opportunities to ensure the industry remains healthy for all stakeholders.

In order to ensure that the industry can continue to deliver material revenue to the treasury in a responsible manner, we would encourage government to consider the following. Continue to manage the marketplace as it relates to gaming locations in such a way that encourages competition but not in a manner that runs counter to the original rationale of the current operator commission model.

What do we mean by that? The current commission model that pays operators like Great Canadian about one-third of gaming revenue generated at a facility dates back to a time when there were far fewer facilities in operation. Thus, the lower commission paid was easier to justify based on larger marketplaces per facility. This is no longer the case, yet the original commission model remains.

In today’s crowded marketplace, it’s much more difficult to justify investment in our properties, marketing programs and other expenditures. The B.C. Lottery Corporation currently offers a capital reimbursem*nt program that has been successful for encouraging and incenting best-of-class facilities, but as it is currently interpreted, it actually penalizes those operators that would like to invest more.

The province has an opportunity to encourage greater investment in the industry, creating more economic activity and more jobs and at no risk to government itself while retaining a disproportionate share of all revenue growth. Further to our first point, as operating margins continue to be constrained, this is a particularly import-
[ Page 1929 ]
ant program to provide operators with an incentive to continue to invest in their properties.

We have our roots in this province and a long-standing history with the development of the operating model that exists today for the province’s gaming industry. We’re eager to build on that rich history, but we implore the province to make thoughtful, smart decisions to ensure that the industry can continue to generate meaningful and responsible revenue for all British Columbians in the years moving forward.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Keeling. I appreciate you taking the time. I’ll go to questions from the committee.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I wondered…. You mentioned the issue of expansion and the fact that the commission was put in place when there were fewer facilities. As the Lottery Corporation looks to expand — as they decide that they’re going to look at expanding — do you get involved? Does your industry get involved in giving feedback around that expansion and the impact that that may have on existing facilities?

Obviously, I’m looking at this from our own region. It’s looking at an expansion right now, and there’s a debate going on, so I’m just curious what kind of role you play, as an industry, around that.

C. Keeling: It’s a fair question, a very appropriate one, in that we operate the lone casino in your region, currently.

[1100]

As I mentioned in my remarks, there certainly is a positive relationship with us, as what are technically called service providers, up to the B.C. Lottery Corporation. Part of the reason why that relationship has been positive, historically, is because there is good, constructive, productive dialogue, recognizing that, ultimately, the Lottery Corporation is the marketplace manager — but also recognizing that the Lottery Corporation’s role as the representative Crown for the province may not always align with gaming operators, the service providers like ourselves.

I think that using that specific example, in terms of…. What’s happening in the capital regional district right now is a good example, whereby we may not be completely aligned with the Lottery Corporation in terms of their viewpoint. They have different interests than we do. I think what may be compounding that issue currently is that we have redevelopment aspirations of ourselves that conflict with what may happen.

With us, in our relationship with the Lottery Corporation and recognizing a good model that exists here in B.C., it’s ensuring that there’s that clarity and certainty, in terms of the marketplace management, to allow operators like us to continue to invest in the marketplace. We think that that will still be the case with our operation in the CRD, but that’s yet to be defined at this point.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I have just a couple more minutes and three more questioners, so we may have to take some on notice.

C. Keeling: I’ll be brief.

S. Chandra Herbert: I’m just curious. You spoke about the model. I think it’s called the AFDC and the FDC’s accelerated facility development commissions. My understanding is that when they were created, the idea was to upgrade casinos that weren’t exactly best in class. That largely, in conversations with B.C. Lottery Corporation folks, they feel, has kind of been met, because you’ve all jumped to make them the best in the business.

Any thoughts on that model? You mentioned that it is a challenge now to get people to invest more. Of course, community folks will look at it and go: “Well, that’s very generous.” They get a new theatre, whereas the community can’t raise money to build theirs.

I’m just trying to understand where you’re coming from on that comment.

C. Keeling: Good question. It’s an excellent model. Again, I’m going to try to be very brief here, recognizing there are other questions. It’s an excellent model, because the operating commission structure — if you go back ten, 12, 14 years ago — really didn’t create enough of an incentive for operators like us to reinvest. We think that the model has largely served its purpose, but there is an opportunity to provide further incentive to operators like ourselves to further invest.

Again, trying to be brief here. The policy, we believe…. There’s good rationale for modernizing or refreshing it, because we also believe that companies like ourselves will materially invest in our existing properties further, should that policy be refreshed.

S. Chandra Herbert: If you’d just provide some background for the committee after, that would be useful.

C. Keeling: Sure. Okay.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I think that’s an excellent idea.

J. Yap: A great asset in our community, the River Rock.

I’m curious. For your operation or, perhaps, generally for the industry…. I know for some casinos there’s a high percentage of tourism that comes to the facility as opposed to the customers being predominantly local. Do you have a breakdown between those that use the facility who are British Columbians, Canadians, versus tourism that is generated?
[ Page 1930 ]

C. Keeling: I don’t know those numbers off the top of my head, John, for sure. But it would definitely be more material at a facility like River Rock where, of course, there is the hotel, conference facilities, other amenities — not too dissimilar, I would suggest, from, say, Gateway’s Grand Villa operation in Burnaby. To a lesser extent, when you look at what we did with our Coquitlam property…. The rebrand to Hard Rock Casino Vancouver was done very much with a regional marketplace in mind, depending on how one defines tourism.

I think when you look at the investment largely spurred by the capital reimbursem*nt program — or AFDC, as Spencer referred to it, the proper name — all the operators in the business are striving to be more of a regional marketplace, premised on the entertainment seeker rather than just the core gambler. That’s where all of our facilities are going.

S. Hamilton (Chair): George, could I ask: will you take this question on notice? He could get back to the committee.

[1105]

G. Heyman: Sure.

Just quickly, Chuck. With the expansion of gaming, the industry has relatively recently formed an association. Among the issues you’re dealing with — and you touched on it — is responsible gaming. I’d just be interested in any thoughts that the association has or Great Canadian has or examples that you can bring forward about any additional steps that the Lottery Corporation and government can take, working with the industry association, to better promote responsible gaming and deal with any of the adverse impacts.

S. Hamilton (Chair): If I could ask, just with respect to the expansion and reinvestment, particularly in the non-gaming, entertainment component of your business…. You referred to it in your presentation. Could you maybe reframe that — just sort of extract it — so that it’s easy for the committee to understand and then resubmit it by October 15? It was sort of the ask. So I’d like to see that in writing.

C. Keeling: No trouble. I can do that.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation.

Now that we’re running a little bit behind, could I invite, please, the Graduate Student Society at Simon Fraser University — Mr. Mark Perry and Mr. Pierre Cenerelli.

Welcome. Ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with two minutes left so you can conclude your thoughts. Then we’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

M. Perry: I’m Mark Perry. I’m a master’s student in English at Simon Fraser University. I’m also the director of external relations for SFU’s Graduate Student Society. This is Pierre Cenerelli. He’s our newly hired executive director of our society.

The Simon Fraser Graduate Student Society is recognized by the University Act and represents graduate students at SFU’s Burnaby, Surrey and Vancouver campuses. We’re also a not-for-profit society.

I’m excited to be here in Surrey, representing the Graduate Student Society. Prior to entering grad school, I worked in a grants office, helping B.C. researchers compete for federal funding. Some of the most innovative and exciting research was coming out of our Surrey campuses. I’d also add I was really interested in the Alzheimer’s presentation that we heard previously. Some of our members work on Alzheimer’s and dementia issues.

Our written submission includes recommendations on improved transit to SFU and increased provincial funding for deferred maintenance at SFU. For our universities to continue to function and remain accessible, we need efficient transit and buildings that don’t fall apart.

However, for British Columbia to be a true world leader in science and humanities research, we need a provincial graduate scholarship. Through the Tri-Council Agencies, the federal government provides funding for many graduate students. However, many are not covered by this funding. Provinces such as Ontario, Alberta and Manitoba offer graduate students provincially funded scholarships.

On page 2 of the written submission that I’ve handed out, you will find a table of the top 20 universities in Canada by research funding. I’ve highlighted in yellow those universities where the graduate students do not have access to graduate provincial scholarships. Of those five universities highlighted in yellow, three are in British Columbia.

B.C.’s universities are at a competitive disadvantage. Advanced education is an increasingly competitive and global affair, and B.C. is falling behind. A B.C. graduate scholarship for domestic and international students will allow B.C. to compete both nationally and internationally as a preferred destination for the world’s best students.

A provincial graduate scholarship is also an investment in a knowledge-based economy. In fact, a recent Statistics Canada survey clearly underlined the economic benefits of obtaining a graduate degree. Employed graduate degree holders earn significantly more than other post-secondary degree holders. On average, MAs earn $70,000 a year, and PhDs earn $75,000 a year — compared to $41,600, on average, for college grads and $53,000 for those with bachelor’s degrees.

A graduate degree prepares students for future jobs. In fact, based on the same survey, 92 percent of master’s graduates reported their job was closely related to their education, with this figure reaching 96 percent for those with doctorates.

[1110]

A B.C. provincial graduate scholarship is also an investment that will attract and retain highly qualified researchers and skilled workers in a highly competitive environment. Up to 54 percent of international students who studied at B.C. post-secondary institutions were interested in working in the province after graduation, thereby contributing to the vibrancy and innovation of our workforce and ensuring that we remain globally competitive.

As researchers at the forefront of their fields, supporting graduate students facilitates innovation and technological development. It will help grow new and emerging industries and enhance established industries such as the natural resource sector, which benefits from research-driven innovations that improve efficiency, productivity and sustainability.

We propose the creation of a B.C. graduate scholarship program, consisting of a $20,000 annual scholarship for 1,000 B.C. graduate students. I encourage you to see our full written submission, which I’ve handed out, for the full details.

Due to the diversity of ways that graduate research and professional programs contribute directly to the B.C. economy and promote stability, we’re proposing that all B.C. graduate students at approved institutions be eligible for this scholarship. Students doing professional programs such as the master of business administration or master of public policy are not eligible for tri-council funding but would be eligible to compete for our proposed provincial graduate scholarship.

There is broad-based support for a B.C. provincial graduate scholarship. The Research Universities Council of B.C. has advocated for such a program, as has the Alliance of B.C. Students, which represents over 100,000 students. In 2013 and 2014, multiple graduate student groups raised the idea with this committee, and in both years this committee has included a B.C. graduate scholarship in its recommendations to government, and we thank you for that.

There’s consensus on this issue. B.C. needs to catch up to the rest of Canada. Let’s invest in a knowledge-based economy by funding a graduate provincial scholarship.

Thank you for your time. I’d be happy to answer any additional questions.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your presentation. I’ve got a couple of questions on it. One is: has there ever been a provincial graduate scholarship in B.C., or is this something that would be new? Secondly, have you tracked, or has anybody been tracking, the brain drain of graduate students who have left B.C. because they haven’t been able to get the funding for post-graduate work?

M. Perry: To your first question, not to my knowledge. I’m not absolutely certain, but I don’t think there has ever been one.

To the second question, I don’t know that that’s been tracked explicitly, but just from personal, anecdotal experience, I certainly know that when people get more competitive offers from universities in other provinces, unless you have some strong tie to your area or you have to stay here for some reason, you’re certainly going to go where there’s better funding. It might be difficult to track that, but from my own experience, I’ve certainly talked to people who’ve gone to other places because it’s better funding.

S. Chandra Herbert: It was just the same question. It sounds like it would make sense. If you provided a graduate scholarship program, more people would come and stay in B.C. But it was really a question of: do the anecdotes back it up? Would a graduate scholarship of…? I don’t know how much you’re thinking. Would it make as big a difference as we think?

Certainly, with high housing costs and so on, you would assume so, but maybe in future, if you had some examples of folks that…. You don’t have to tell us their full names, but be able to illustrate what that means to their lives — that would be helpful.

M. Perry: Well, one thing that it also would do is make B.C. students more competitive for federal funding. If you miss out on a federal scholarship but are able to get the provincial one, you can make a more competitive application in years to come. I think it does help to bring in more federal money by preparing our students a little bit better to make those applications for the bigger federal grants. There’s that aspect of it as well.

S. Chandra Herbert: That makes sense.

S. Gibson: I’m a former grad student at SFU, so it’s good to have you here.

[1115]

Would you say that some programs at SFU are under-enrolled because there’s not the scholarship funding available? In other words, there are spaces available that would be filled otherwise if there were scholarships available. That’s my first question.

M. Perry: I’m not sure about that.

Do you have a sense of that?

P. Cenerelli: That would be a very difficult point to get at. Part of it, with the provincial funding, it probably…. Programs can’t take in as many students, often, as they would want, because it’s capped, and that may make sense. I mean, there’s a limit of the funds.

The question, I think, would be more: what’s the level of the students we’re getting as a result of the funding or
[ Page 1932 ]
not the funding? Again, I think it goes to the question of preparing the students. I think this amount would get them more competitive, and then it might keep them longer. In other words, someone might go to SFU for a master’s and would like to go for a doctorate after, but if they don’t have the money for their master’s to prepare for the doctoral application, their application won’t be as competitive.

In that sense, yes, I think that probably the numbers are down. The problem, again, is that it’s a negative proposition. How do you prove that somebody left because they didn’t have the money? It’s hard to do.

S. Gibson: Right. Another supplementary. I know we’re running out of time here, Mr. Chairman.

When I did my grad degree at SFU, I worked full-time, and I was also on city council, so it was tough for me. But I think a lot of students today…. I would encourage students who are struggling financially to work if you can, because I did it. It took me seven years. It wasn’t exactly painless, but I did finish. And I was working. You know, had a family, blah, blah, blah. So maybe your comments on that.

M. Perry: Certainly, that’s an option, and there are TA-ships you can get while you’re doing your studies. But you can’t devote yourself fully to research if you’re working, and I think that’s a problem. If we want our students to be working at the forefront of their fields, we want them to spend as much time as they can on actually doing research.

That’s what I think these big scholarships do. That’s why the SSHRCs and NSERCs are there. It’s to give people a cushion so they can focus on that kind of forefront of knowledge. That’s what I’d say.

D. Ashton: Just quickly. You purposely may have answered some of it — I want thank you, Mark and Pierre, for your presentation — but the amount that you’ve chosen is the highest in Canada except for a PhD program in Quebec. The reason for that — why you wouldn’t go closer to a mean or ask for more?

M. Perry: We wanted to start with a number. If government decide they want to bring that down, that’s their prerogative. But that is consistent with, as you said, Quebec.

D. Ashton: Only in the PhD program, though, where everybody else is substantially lower in graduate studies. I’m just curious.

P. Cenerelli: It’s close, and I would add one thing, maybe, that Mark didn’t quite underline in his presentation, but it’s mentioned in the presentation there, the written one you have. It’s that this is only for one year, so in a sense, it’s a bit different from the other ones, where they will fund students, especially at the PhD level, for multiple years. This is really a program that is to support, if you will, the federal programs. The idea is to make sure that students are really ready to make their application federally and be more likely to be successful.

I think that’s one reason that…. Initially, this was done, a little bit, to top it up a little. They said: “Well, it’s only one year.” It’s not a multi-year program like it is in Quebec, for sure — and in the other provinces, I think, as well. In Quebec, it’s a multi-year program, even at the master’s level. So the feeling here is: since it’s only one year, make it a larger amount but not so much that it’s completely out of the norm.

S. Hamilton (Chair): With about a minute left, I have George, please.

G. Heyman: Very quickly, the B.C. Technology Industry Association has identified that B.C. lags…. One of the inhibitors to growth in the tech industry in B.C. is the lag of graduates in the relevant skills. If you are able to supply the committee, before the 15th, with any examples from other jurisdictions where the scholarships have actually shown a difference in attraction rates….

I know you mention deferred maintenance with the recent closure of residences at Simon Fraser because they were not maintained and they became uninhabitable. Has that had an impact on recruitment of post-graduate students at SFU?

M. Perry: Absolutely. There’s a very high cost to being a student in Vancouver. In the Lower Mainland, in general, the cost of living is very high.

[1120]

As you mentioned, the one residence building for graduate students with families was closed at SFU Burnaby because — you’re right — it wasn’t being kept up. It certainly is an issue in terms of recruiting new students because it just raises the costs massively.

We’ll definitely try to get that information that you asked for.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you. And if you could make sure we receive that information before the 15th of October, that way it can form part of the submissions. I appreciate that. I appreciate your taking the time to present to the committee. Take care.

Next I have Kathleen Yang from the Simon Fraser Student Society. I think she brought some company with her.

K. Yang: I did, in fact, bring some company.

S. Hamilton (Chair): As you’re getting settled, ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with maybe a couple of minutes left, just so you can
[ Page 1933 ]
conclude your thoughts. Then we’ll go to the committee for questions. So if you’re ready, we can begin. The floor is yours.

K. Yang: Sounds good. Our president, Enoch Weng, will be opening our presentation today. If that’s okay, I would like to also keep time for myself.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Absolutely.

K. Yang: Okay, so I’ll hand it over to Enoch.

E. Weng: Hi, everyone. My name is Enoch Weng. I’m the president of the Simon Fraser Student Society. I’d like to begin by thanking you all for letting us have this opportunity to be part of the consultation process for the provincial budget.

The four main things we’d like to talk about today are: (1) our ideas for funding for the B.C. open textbook program, (2) our operating grants for post-secondary institutions, (3) deferred maintenance grants and (4) liability of post-secondary institutions to self-finance selected capital projects.

With me today I have our VP of student life, Deepak Sharma; our VP external, Kathleen Yang; as well as our business representative, Hangue Kim. Together we are representing 30,000 undergraduate students at Simon Fraser University.

We’d like to also begin by thanking the government of British Columbia for the following investments: $1.96 billion for Advanced Education; $2.1 billion in capital spending over three years by post-secondary institutions across the province posted in the 2015 budget; the U-Pass program; $7.7 million in support of SFU’s research in a Prometheus project through the British Columbia knowledge development fund; and last but not least, $290 million in provincial grants for operations of Simon Fraser University.

Now that the provincial government has realized a surplus for this fiscal year, we feel that this new financial reality makes it appropriate for us to ask for recommitment to a number of recommendations put forward by last year’s committee. This list can be found on page 2.

First on the list we have is the B.C. open textbook program, and I’ll pass it over to Kathleen Yang to start our presentation.

K. Yang: Thank you, Enoch.

I just wanted to point out that in the booklets, you’ll find a loose-leaf in the official submission. That was due to a typo, so that is the correct background that should be included for recommendation 3 and 4. The e-mailed electronic version that was sent to the committee this morning will have the correct version corrected in that copy.

I’m here to open up by talking about the B.C. open textbook program. As many of you know, since its creation in 2012, the open textbook program in B.C. has benefited a number of post-secondary students.

Just to list some statistics today, there have been 285 known adoptions of open textbooks at 18 B.C. institutions. There have been over 26,000 file downloads in 2015, suggesting a 27 percent increase in file downloads since 2014 and an exponential increase since 2013. The estimated student savings from open textbooks has been reported to be between $900,000 and $1.1 million. The textbook library has grown to include 117 titles spanning 38 subjects, with an additional 57 titles to be completed by the end of October 2015.

This is all as a result of the investments made by the Ministry of Advanced Education in 2012. We are asking for a continued commitment in long-term investing, and we hope that this long-term investment can help fully utilize the initial investments put forward by the ministry and help facilitate the creation of more open textbooks written from a B.C. perspective and support the creation of ancillary teaching materials.

[1125]

As we talked to more faculty members, what we found was that the lack of ancillary teaching materials that often accompany private textbooks has been a major deterrent to allowing research institutions to take on and adopt open textbooks, as that means they have to customize and create their own ancillary materials, which takes away time from their research.

We’re hoping that a longer-term investment will, again, provide BCcampus, which is the group that is promoting the open textbook project, with the resources to create the ancillary teaching materials and create more textbooks. This would also fall in line with the mandate of the Minister of Advanced Education, as it was written in the ministerial letter written by the Office of the Premier this past year.

The second thing we want to talk about is operating grants to post-secondary institutions. As you’ll note on page 5 in your booklets, there is a chart here listing the operating grants over the past ten years almost. You’ll notice that in the last five years, we’ve reached a plateau in terms of SFU operating grants.

It is our hope that the provincial government will be able to proceed with the 2016-2017 planned increase of $14 million to the Ministry of Advanced Education. However, for the past number of years, the plateau in funding has resulted in cuts to the ministry, which translate to reductions in the operating grants to B.C.’s post-secondary institutions.

Although our university has continued to uphold the principles of financial oversight and accountability by using internal revenues and exceeding the utilization rates, as you will see on the next page — and this chart was taken directly from the Ministry of Advanced Education — we are still in a bit of a crunch. In fact, student fees and tuition have now surpassed the contributions of the provincial government this fiscal year.
[ Page 1934 ]

Again, we’ve talked about this in previous years, about the need for more operating grants for post-secondary institutions. We’ve kind of gone through, again, some economic arguments that we put forward in last year’s report, so I won’t go through those again.

Then moving on to our recommendations 3 and 4. We’ve combined the requests for operating grants for deferred maintenance and the recommendation that we review our accounting centres that limit our ability to self-finance selected capital projects. We believe that these are interconnected and intertwined due to the fact that a lot of the deferred maintenance projects will require capital funding. At SFU, we have over $700 million in deferred maintenance funding right now that requires addressing.

As you can see in figure 6, the annual capital allowance has, in fact, decreased over the course of the last ten years and has not been realized to…. I realize I have about seven minutes left. Let me just reorganize here.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Whatever you don’t finish you can submit to the committee, and it will form part of the public record.

K. Yang: Right.

Let me start over with deferred maintenance. Again, it’s all really written in your reports. Honestly, at the end of day, what we’re really looking to ask is just for, again, a recommitment to the recommendations put forward at last year’s consultations. The reason why we are asking for a recommitment to these recommendations is because a number of student unions have also presented on these same issues, and we truly feel that this is a matter of ensuring the quality of accessible post-secondary education for all universities, not just SFU, which is why we’ve kind of committed ourselves to more broad asks.

Again, I was talking about the…. We’ve lumped these two recommendations together because of the fact that we have a lot of deferred maintenance, particularly at SFU, which requires a great deal of funding. While the university has taken upon itself to create a deferred maintenance fund, this fund only has $4 million currently, as of two fiscal years ago, and has committed to creating internal loans of $30 million. However, this, again, isn’t enough when we are in a great crisis in terms of our deferred maintenance.

[1130]

While I recognize that residence housing is not under the mandate of the Ministry of Advanced Education, I would just like to thank MLA Heyman for bringing up the residence issue, as we did just recently close Louis Riel House, which affected a number of SFU graduate and undergraduate students, particularly undergraduate students who have families and young children, who since have found other housing thanks to the university providing that funding and that transition process.

However, it still continues to be a pressing need that we now no longer have any family housing, which again ties back to the need for deferred maintenance.

I believe my ten minutes are up. I apologize for stumbling on that last piece there. If you have any further questions, please do let me know. My contact information has been included in the report. As well, there is a more in-depth deferred maintenance report that we have put together over the last number of years. You can see the quality of our academic buildings in those pictures noted in the appendix.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. You are right on time. As soon as you left your notes, you started to fly. It was great. You were terrific. The ladies up here probably made you feel at ease, but the old guys in suits…. I can imagine how intimidating and nervous you must have felt.

K. Yang: Well, I have my guys right here.

S. Hamilton (Chair): You did a great job.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I want to thank you for the creativity on the photo contest. Great idea. It brings it home graphically — the challenges that are faced.

Just a quick question on the open textbook project. I wondered whether you were looking for continued funding. So just a question around…. I wasn’t sure whether you were worried that the funding was going to end when the project is completed, whether you’re looking for continued funding or increased funding. You mentioned long-term. Is there any kind of timeline that you’re looking at?

K. Yang: Yeah. Again, there is no real…. At the end of the day, I think what we’re looking at is ensuring that there is a long-term commitment. While it is, right now, the mandate of the Ministry of Advanced Education to ensure the creation of new open textbooks, we do want to make sure that it goes beyond just this fiscal year and into other governments in the future, hence why it has been presented in a more broad and general request instead of a specific ask.

M. Morris: Just looking at your utilization rates of 111 percent and, generally, your request for more funding. Of course, I come from the central interior of B.C. We have UNBC. We have other post-secondary institutions scattered throughout the province. Would it be more prudent to use provincial dollars — a lot of it is generated from the rural areas of B.C. through the resource sector — to ensure that all universities and post-secondary institutions are used to capacity before we start looking at injecting money into other universities while we still have
[ Page 1935 ]
this unused utilization in some of our Interior universities throughout the province here?

I just throw that out. We’re faced with this as a government. Where do we spend the money? Welcome to Prince George. Come on up and have a look and see what we have up there. We’ve got student housing up there. We’ve got jobs available up there. We’ve got spaces in the university available up there. I think we need to look beyond the walls of your current institution.

K. Yang: Did you want me to respond to that?

S. Hamilton (Chair): You certainly may.

K. Yang: Okay. I thank you, MLA Morris, for that comment. Again, I think, in B.C. in particular, we do have a very unique rural/urban divide. We have to address those concerns accordingly.

But again, the focus of our presentation is to note that specifically, because we are representing SFU students, it is our obligation to let you know that the utilization rates are, in fact, being exceeded, which meets the requirements and, in fact, exceeds the requirements of the Ministry of Advanced Education. But I thank you again for speaking up for rural communities, as I know you have done in past public consultations as well.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for the presentation. I also want to ask briefly about the open textbook. You’ve got the student savings of up to more than $1 million. Is it possible to quantify how much students tend to have to pay on textbooks if this wasn’t available? Are these available in all subjects at all levels, or is it just undergraduates that this is available for?

K. Yang: I think our VP student life, Deepak Sharma, also has something to add to this point. But the open textbook campaign that we have running at our university, as well as at UBC, was a campaign using #textbookbroke, where students took pictures of their identified textbook costs for the year.

[1135]

It could be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $500 per textbook. It really depends.

I believe Deepak might be able to speak to this a little bit more, but there is quantifiable data out there. I don’t have it in front of me right now, but if you would like me to follow up with you personally afterwards, I’d be more than happy to do so.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Mr. Sharma, in 45 seconds or less.

D. Sharma: Yeah. Just to add simply more to what Kathleen was speaking to, the reason why we come here not asking for a specific commitment but more for a long-term commitment is because at a school like SFU, it’s not being utilized by our professors and faculty at the moment. Part of it — since the funding is there, and we’re appreciating it — is because the authors and the publication that’s coming out isn’t enough for our faculty and professors to address.

So our SFU administration might really like the idea of open text, but at the end of the day, because of freedom of academics, it’s up to professors and the faculty to actually make use of the textbooks. That’s another reason why we need a long-term commitment from the government to ensure that these savings continue for students.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Fantastic. Thank you for that answer.

Ms. Yang, look at your clock. Did you make it?

K. Yang: Oh, I believe so.

S. Hamilton (Chair): There you go.

K. Yang: Actually, sorry, I stopped the clock after the ten-minute mark, so I was counting on you to….

S. Hamilton (Chair): You made it. You’re bang on.

Well done. Congratulations. Thank you very much for taking the time to present. Keep up the great work on behalf of the students you represent.

K. Yang: Thank you for having us, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. I know that there are a couple of other student unions coming out.

S. Hamilton (Chair): There will be.

K. Yang: I hope you enjoy their presentations as well.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay. Have a good day.

Who do we have next? We have Dr. Alan Davis and Marlyn Graziano. Good morning. Good to see you again.

A. Davis: Good morning.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Welcome. You probably heard me say it already, but ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll get your attention with a couple of minutes left so you can conclude your thoughts, and then we’ll go to the committee for questions. So if you’re ready, the floor is yours.

A. Davis: Thanks for this opportunity to contribute. I’m going to talk about the South Fraser region. I’d like to say, first of all, that this region overlaps with the traditional lands of the Kwantlen, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen and Katzie First Nations, and we thank them for sharing their resources and land with us, and the Kwantlen First Nation for sharing their name.
[ Page 1936 ]

I want to talk about investments and opportunity for a bright future for this region and for British Columbia. The South Fraser region encompasses the city of Richmond, the corporation of Delta, the city of Surrey, the city of White Rock and the Langleys, both the township and the city. That’s home to nearly one million people.

It’s the fastest-growing region in British Columbia. It’s projected to outstrip the growth in the rest of British Columbia for the next ten years at least. It’s also a younger population than the rest of British Columbia.

It is a gateway and transportation hub. Every region thinks it’s a gateway and transportation hub, but south of the Fraser really is, in every mode of transportation.

It’s a diverse and dynamic economy, with advanced manufacturing, aerospace, clean and green technology. Its horticulture and agriculture, of course, is very big, and an array of industries that support the resource sector. And it is, of course, ethnically extremely diverse.

We believe that this growth and this demographic are key to the future of British Columbia’s workforce. However, the region’s population is less well-qualified at the post-secondary level than the rest of B.C. overall. And, as we’ve heard, in a knowledge economy, this is going to be a problem. We’re not going to take full advantage of the people in our region if we can’t provide them access to the right programs at the post-secondary level.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University, KPU, is a special purpose, regional teaching university. This is our region. We serve nearly 20,000 students annually across four campuses in over 120 programs. The annual budget is about $150 million. Just less than half of that comes from the province through the AVED grant. We produce, annually, about 2,300 job-ready graduates.

In terms of stewardship, KPU has demonstrated its commitment to fiscal accountability through external and internal audits. We generate more FTEs per million dollars of AVED funding than any other teaching university. We use 50 percent less energy per square metre than any other university we can find, and we’ve just been declared one of Canada’s greenest employers.

We’re open to any adult who wishes to begin their post-secondary studies at any level. We are applied. We offer a diverse array of programs, both developmental, trades, technology, arts, science, business, design and health. And where the rubber hits the road, we have 47,000 very successful graduates in terms of their employment and in terms of their success in further study.

[1140]

Our applied research is highly relevant. We have partnerships with schools, industries and aboriginal communities that are extensive.

We don’t claim to serve the South Fraser region alone. We do share that responsibility, particularly with our colleagues at SFU Surrey and BCIT, with its aerospace and transportation trades operations in our region.

The pitch, then, is that KPU is somewhat stalled. Our domestic enrolments — and we run at 100 percent capacity — have plateaued, while they should be growing. Applications, indeed, are up. We cannot meet demand in all areas and maintain full offerings across all areas of the region. While we juggle offerings to match demand, we have reached a limit on how much we can offer, and our ability to expand offerings to meet the changing needs of our region is somewhat limited.

We’ve heard about areas such as the science, technology, engineering and mathematics — the STEM subjects. There’s the creative industry. There’s huge interest in expanding the creative economy here south of the Fraser, which is related, also, to tourism and hospitality, sports and recreation, green technologies. There’s a wide array of emerging areas that should be supported by the post-secondary sector right here in our region.

KPU has the lowest number of funded seats as a percentage of the 18- to 24-year-old population in our region than any other teaching university. It’s actually 9 percent. The next-lowest is Capilano, at 23 percent. The fact is that there simply aren’t enough post-secondary seats in this region to serve a young and growing population.

We also receive the lowest per-FTE funding amongst comparable institutions. The average for the post-secondary sector is nearly $10,000 per FTE. We get $7,161 for KPU. But who’s counting? It’s nearly 30 percent less than the average for the sector. We get community college–level funding for what is, essentially, a university mandate, and we are subject to all the other constraints, of course, that the teaching universities have relative to the university sector at large.

KPU will continue to do all it can with the resources we have, and we are ready to do more. We see an opportunity for more investment in education south of the Fraser. We want to build the workforce that B.C. will need in the future from our growing, diverse and young population in this region.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. I will go the committee.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thanks for the presentation. It’s exciting, what’s going on down here south of the Fraser.

I’m curious. We’ve heard it in a couple of other regions, from other universities. There have been questions raised about the funding formulas for different universities. Questions of why this school gets this, versus this school gets this — seemingly, with no feeling of a rhyme or reason for how they were allocated, aside from: “The funding was decided many years ago, and that’s just how it is.”

Is there support for opening that up, for kind of looking at the funding formulas for colleges and universities? Again, is that what I’m hearing?

A. Davis: I can only speak for myself and for KPU. We would very much welcome that. We believe that we
[ Page 1937 ]
are shortchanged here and that, therefore, the region is shortchanged. It is historical. It is the way it is. Things were frozen at the particular time, and you kind of inherited what you got.

I should say — I’ll be perfectly honest — that in the Campus 2020 submission, Kwantlen didn’t ask for any more money so we could do it. Actually, that was probably a mistake. The fact is, if you want to be a comprehensive, broadly based university to serve emerging needs and constantly evolve and grow with the region, you’re going to need to do better than that.

I’m here to say that even if we got the average of the teaching universities, we’d be a lot better off, and we could do a lot more. Whatever sort of algorithm you come up with to say, “These are the kinds of programs. This is the cost of living in your region. Here’s some formula that, at least, has some rationality,” that would help. I think we would come out better.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just to follow up, any estimate to get to the average of an average teaching university? What do you think that would cost in Kwantlen’s case?

[1145]

A. Davis: It would be a few hundred per FTE, I guess — probably about $500 per FTE, per full-time-equivalent — so from about $7,100 up to about $7,600 or $7,700. We could do a lot with that.

S. Chandra Herbert: And an overall budget figure, rather than just per FTE?

A. Davis: Ah, yes. Well, we have about 10,000 FTEs. So you multiply that by $500.

C. Trevena: Thank you for your presentation. A similar sort of question along the line that Spencer had. You mentioned that you get community college–level funding for a university-level mandate. Kwantlen was one of the newly-made universities in the flurry when suddenly we were going to have a lot of universities in B.C.

I’m wondering: has the funding formula been frozen in the structure of, effectively, community colleges? Or have you seen, over the years, a reflection that you are now designated a university and, therefore, instead of…? I represent an area where we’ve got North Island College. It gets a different level of funding than Kwantlen would. I’m just wondering what you’ve seen in the last, I guess, seven or eight years since you’ve become a university.

A. Davis: I’ve only been here three. Essentially, it’s just been…. While there have been cuts in the last three years, and we’ve all been cut to the same extent, I think it was a matter of being frozen in time at a particular time.

I believe, also, that some of our colleagues at Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island, for instance, were sort of ahead of the curve in terms of becoming university colleges, and they got extra funding to work with partner universities. Kwantlen didn’t do that. I mean, that’s my recollection. It’s a sordid history.

My recollection is that Kwantlen sort of trudged along later on, did not get some of the benefits of going through that mentoring process and then ended up with a lower level of funding per FTE. So it’s somewhat accidental, and that’s why I welcome a review and perhaps a rationalization of this.

M. Morris: Again, probably similar comments to the last group that was here. We’ve got a wide range of post-secondary institutions throughout the province. A lot of the revenue that we use for post-secondary comes from the resource sector that’s generated in the interior of B.C.

It sounds like probably…. A colleague down at the other end of the table suggested this was a destination university. Everybody wants to go to Kwantlen or some of the other Lower Mainland universities. Is it a better utilization of taxpayer dollars to say, “Sorry, we don’t have any room in Kwantlen. How would you like to go to Prince George or Thompson Rivers University?” or one of the other post-secondary institutions that are undersubscribed right now? This is a pressure that we face as a government, so just your comments on that.

A. Davis: I think it’s absolutely part of the solution. I certainly meet and talk to parents, who seek advice, and say: “Well, if you can’t get in here, particularly in some competitive programs, there are lots of other options.” We certainly do refer people. I think it’s very much part of the solution. You have to think as a system; you have to work as a system.

We get a lot of students in Langley who’ll go out to UFV, for instance, because they’re going against the traffic and they have room, and we can’t offer everything that they need in Langley because we’re full in Surrey. There’s a kind of domino effect in that.

However, having said all that, most of our students are part-time. They work, and they study, and they have family commitments. They’ve got these rich lives that are embedded in the community, and it’s hard for them to just uproot, pack their clothes and go off to another place. Some do, and I would encourage them to. I think it’s good for people to see the rest of the province and enjoy it. I certainly did that when I was a youngster, and you’re expected to.

But I think people…. Even then, I still believe that the south of Fraser region is given short shrift in terms of the opportunities that young people and adults have in the region. But I agree with you. I absolutely agree that we need to think as a system and try and find ways for people — incentivize them or whatever — to look at the other options. And we would always do that too.
[ Page 1938 ]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you.

A couple of minutes left.

S. Gibson: I taught at UFV for 13 years, out in Abbotsford and the Chilliwack campuses. My question is…. There’s a huge trend in the U.S., which hasn’t really hit here, to allow students to work on a variety of credentials without interfering with their work. Now, I had opportunity to do some grad study while working full time. But this is a huge thing in the U.S., where an adult can keep their job and work on a variety of credentials. Why hasn’t that wave hit here yet? What’s the reluctance?

[1150]

A. Davis: Well, I’ve worked in that field too. I worked in the U.S. in an adult-serving institution. And yeah, it’s hard. I mean, you’d have to change the whole system.

We did have the Open Learning Agency. It was very successful. Thompson Rivers picked up that open-learning concept, and they serve a lot of people, largely on line — but that kind of mixing and matching of the distance and on-line education with the classroom. Some students do it naturally. Certainly, when I talk to my advisers, they say: “Yeah, we’ll refer people up to Thompson Rivers.” If they can’t fit around the schedule that we have, they’ll take a course on line and bring the credit in.

There is a lot more that could be done with existing resources to make that system work better. I think pretty well every institution I know…. Open textbooks is one side of that game, but opening up the other channels of actually teaching and learning in an open way has huge potential.

B.C. has been a bit of a leader. I think many institutions are going to increasingly unbundle the classroom and offer parts of it. You might come to class once a week or once every two weeks and then study on line or in groups, in different ways. It’s a very exciting time, and the U.S. is ahead, but I think we’ll follow along and do it right.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’re out of time, but I’ll ask Spencer if he could ask his question. We’ll take it on notice, and you can get back to the committee before the 15th of October with the answer, please.

S. Chandra Herbert: I want to be fair, but I just wanted to ask…. Given that there’s been a fair amount of controversy around Kwantlen and payments to directors — or allegations, etc. — and the spending of student funds improperly and so on, I’m just curious. What sorts of assurances or what sorts of changes has Kwantlen made internally to ensure that provincial money or public money, student money, is properly being spent and looked after?

It could be off the record. We don’t need to get that here, because I know we’ve run out time, but it certainly would be helpful for me.

A. Davis: Happy to respond.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for taking the time to present. Have a good day. We’ll see you again. Take care.

Next, we have Jordan Bateman, Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

You’ve been sitting here long enough, so you probably already know the spiel, right? I don’t have to repeat it. When you’re ready, the floor is yours.

J. Bateman: First of all, as a South Fraser guy, I have to tell you that in the past 20 years, no one’s reputation south of the Fraser has improved as much as Kwantlen University’s. They are a fantastic university.

Interjection.

J. Bateman: There you go.

Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I appreciate it. I’ve given you a very chunky report here. It’s actually two reports. One is our budget recommendations. Then the second half is an analysis we did on food and drink taxes, which I know have come up a few times and that I’ll talk about in a second.

The Taxpayers Federation, as you know, is a national organization. We’re a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization. We fight for three things — lower taxes, less waste and more government accountability. Anything you all recommend that are around those three things, we’re going to love.

I actually feel like the CTF and this committee have a lot in common. We often all make recommendations that the government takes, and we never get credit for them. For example, in the past five years — this is my fifth presentation to this committee, I believe — we recommended full disclosure of MLA expenses. Of course, we can all go on line and check your expenses later today. We recommended: the Pacific Carbon Trust elimination; slowing the increase in health care spending; a core review, which just happened; a balanced budget act; and also reducing the size of the PavCo board of directors.

I appreciate the fact that ideas that can be fed to your committee, even if they don’t make it to the report, can often be accepted by government.

I also understand the challenge you face. I’ve been following closely on Hansard. I’ve done a quick calculation that you’ve heard about $11 billion worth of spending requests. It’s going to be quite a challenge for you all, with a budget of $45 billion.

Our recommendation to you — this will fly in the face of a lot of what you’ve heard — is to not spend that money, to please remain focused on balancing the budget and to encourage the Finance Minister to apply as much of the surplus to the debt as possible. That’s why we titled our report this year Save Our Surplus.

Despite the fact that the B.C. government has an operational surplus — the operational budget is balanced —
[ Page 1939 ]
B.C.’s debt did increase by $2 billion last year. That’s $500 million a quarter. It has reached a record high of almost $65 billion, and it’s still projected to reach $69 billion by March 31, 2018.

Anything we can do to reduce that debt and reduce the debt-financing costs will give more money in the government’s coffers later on to do things like increase funding for Kwantlen.

[1155]

We’re recommending a few different things. One of them is a debt reduction act. This was actually promised by the government in the last provincial election. We’ve yet to see that act come through. Hopefully, with this budget cycle, we’ll see that promise realized.

The key for us there is we would like to see 75 percent of surplus applied to debt repayment every year. That still leaves 25 percent to do other things. There are always other priorities; you’ve heard many across the province. But we need to get this debt under control, and every dollar we put into that saves us money down the road as far as debt-servicing cost goes.

A few other recommendations. I should note that we consult our supporters. There are almost 90,000 of them across Canada who identify as CTF supporters. We talked to our supporters about their recommendations, and this shapes our recommendations here.

We want to see a review of the Medical Services Plan tax. We actually want to see it frozen for a year while we review it. This is a tax that’s becoming more and more important to government coffers. We understand that. At the same time, it’s becoming a greater and greater expense for both families and seniors and for businesses who pay it as part of a payroll. Since 2010, we’ve seen almost a 40 percent increase in that tax.

It’s my least favourite bill every month when I sit down and pay the bills. It’s coming up to $150 a month for my family to pay this MSP. It’s wonderful to have the lowest income taxes in the country, but that’s a bit of a false statistic when you have $150 a month going out the door in MSP.

It’s an unfair tax, and we think it needs to be reviewed for a number of different reasons. We need to know what the true cost of collecting that tax is. It’s a separate bureaucracy from the actual income tax collection. Is it efficient in the way it’s collected? We have no idea. We would like more information on that.

We want to see some more information on the recent increases and whether it meets the taxpayers’ ability to pay. The government has taxpayer accountability principles. Ability to pay is part of that. We want to know if it’s still meeting that.

We want to know whether the MSP is actually accomplishing the goal of linking health care usage to health care taxes. This is something Finance Ministers like to talk about: “Well, you need to know that health care isn’t free.” I think we all know that. But is it actually meeting that target?

This isn’t an insurance premium where if I never leave the couch and I’m smoking four packs of cigarettes a day and I’m skydiving out of planes when I do leave the couch, I’m paying more for my health care premiums than if I’m living with low-risk behaviour. This is the sort of thing that we need to talk about. If we’re actually wanting to link these health care taxes to health care system usage, that’s one thing. But that isn’t happening with this MSP.

Then, also, in fairness, related to income levels, it makes no sense that a family making $30,001 a year pays the same in this tax as Henrik and Daniel Sedin do, and they make $9½ million a year. That shows us that this tax has not had the proper attention paid to it.

Then also, we’d like to know…. There don’t seem to be any concrete statistics on how many people actually pay this tax, as compared to their businesses. I know that employment is a big focus of this government, and rightfully so. Payroll taxes erode employment rates. If this is being paid by the majority of businesses, that is a payroll tax and we need to look at the effect of that on employment. Is that a way we can actually spark more employment — by making it cheaper to employ people? That’s something else that needs to be talked about. So that’s MSP.

A few other recommendations new this year. We’d like you to resist these misguided calls for food and drink taxes. The provincial government, the Ministry of Finance, actually did a review of food and drink taxes a couple of years ago. The fine people at the Ministry of Finance termed it purely a revenue measure. There was no link that they could find between it and health care. It has been an abysmal failure in a country like Denmark. The folks who support the tax like to talk about Mexico. Denmark is a lot more like British Columbia than, I think, Mexico is, especially when you look at the cross-border shopping. There’s a full report in here that will talk about that.

The substitution effect. If Coca-Cola is more expensive, you’ll go down the aisle and buy Sun-Rype juice or milk or alcohol or something else that has other negative effects, so this is a slippery slope that we want to see stopped.

A couple of other quick recommendations. We’re asking that the government resist the capital regional district’s request for a 2-cents-a-litre gas tax hike. There’s an audit going on at B.C. Transit right now. We’d like to see the results of that audit before we just hand over more gas tax to the CRD. We think it’s prudent to see if B.C. Transit is running efficiently and effectively and if they’re maximizing their other revenue opportunities.

[1200]

Then finally, the carbon tax. When the carbon tax first came in, about 38 percent of its revenue was returned to people through personal income tax cuts — part of the revenue neutrality. Today only 22 percent comes back to us through those cuts. So the government has used it to fund all sorts of boutique tax credits, which have bene-
[ Page 1940 ]
fit for industries and other payers. But we’ve gotten away from the burden on the average person. The best way to take care of that is to reduce income tax with carbon tax revenue. We’d like to see that percentage looked at again.

That’s all I have. I want to say thank you, and I appreciate any questions you have.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much, Mr. Bateman. You’re a fountain of figures.

C. Trevena: Thanks very much for your presentation, and thank you for including your previous recommendations as well. I look forward to going through those.

My question is about MSP and the suggestion to freeze it, to review it. As I understand it, it’s just us and Quebec that have MSP. I know that Alberta tried to bring it in; it failed. In Ontario, when I was living there, it didn’t have it. They brought it in; it failed. I’m wondering if you’ve got, either through yourselves or other taxpayers federations in the different provinces, any figures on how much the section of income tax — I believe it comes under income tax — is going into health? I mean, if you’ve got any breakdown of figures.

What we hear all the time is, “We really need to pay this because it’s the only way we can afford our health care,” whereas, as you say, there is a huge disparity between the income and affording it. We all pay the same. I’m just wondering if you’ve got any figures on what happens in other provinces.

J. Bateman: Bluntly, there’s a dearth of information about the MSP. Academic researchers — very little about it. Across the country, Alberta actually had it for quite a while and then scrapped it about ten years ago.

If there’s anything you’d like to know, I’m going to spend my year digging into this further. That’s one of the reasons I want to see a review. I’ll take that, if you don’t mind, and get back to you in a few months and do an analysis. The health care budget is — what? — $17 billion a year; $2 billion, $2½ billion comes to us through MSP. That really isn’t covering the full weight. So if I could, I’ll get back to you on that.

C. Trevena: I’d be very interested to hear what comes of that. Thank you.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We have about four more minutes and just as many questions.

S. Gibson: We’ve had some fairly, you might say, cogent presentations on the advisability of providing some disincentives for sugared drinks. I see your material here. It’s quite well done. Is it your view that a tax, even a nominal tax, on sweetened drinks will not be a disincentive? Well, you say, they’ll just move to other products.

I’m not advocating this. We’re still working this through as a committee, but the presentations have been interesting. According to stats from Mexico, it was successfully discouraged — the amount of drinking of sweetened drinks. The point that was being made by a doctor who presented here to us was that it would actually be less costly for the taxpayers in terms of health-related services for those who are obese. Maybe you’d like to comment on that a bit.

J. Bateman: Yeah, the report actually looks at those kinds of things. It’s false. For every doctor you get recommending this, there are doctors who recommend against it, who don’t see the value of connecting the two. The report goes into a number of interesting stats — for example, Canadian levels of obesity. Under our rules, “The Rock” and Sidney Crosby would be considered obese. Clearly, Sidney Crosby is not obese, but these are the kinds of stats that get thrown around in order to shape this recommendation.

Look, Mexico has a much lower income than British Columbia’s. British Columbia has a cross-border shopping problem. It’s not so bad at this moment because of the lower dollar, but it can certainly come back. When the dollar was at par or higher, I was living in Langley, and I’d get flyers already from Blaine and Bellingham grocery stores, advertising food products there.

In Denmark, German companies, German supermarkets, send flyers into Danish homes saying: “Come shop in Germany; no food or sugar tax.” And it drew. The numbers of cross-borders went from one in three crossing the border to shop to one in two. We can’t do that in British Columbia without crippling the south regions.

There’s a lot of good information in that. I’m hopeful that you’ll take a look at it.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I have three more questioners and less than three minutes. I’m willing to either take them all on notice, or fast questions, fast answers.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I’ll be quick. Just a question around the debt issue. As you probably know, there are a number of economists right now who are saying that with low interest rates, with the sluggish economy, that it’s actually a smart time to look at borrowing money, and it’s a smart time to be able to look at building infrastructure to kick-start the economy, etc. I just wondered if you have any thoughts on that.

[1205]

J. Bateman: Well, we’ve gone from $33 billion worth of debt in 2006 to $69 billion in 2018. Chances are we’ve borrowed plenty. I don’t think we need to continue to heap up the debt there. We’ve put a lot of money into future infrastructure here, and now’s the time to start reeling those debt payments back in.
[ Page 1941 ]

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for making a strong case for a progressive income tax system versus flat taxes. My question has to do with your desire to find money for government expenditures, capital investment and debt reduction without raising taxes.

You campaigned against transit — which would relieve congestion, which studies demonstrate is costing the B.C. economy significantly — on the basis that TransLink could find the money on its own. I think most people who run the numbers say they may be able to find some savings, but they won’t be able to build significant infrastructure without it. So why — and feel free to do this in writing — do you think it is not possible to do both things at the same time and, therefore, meet your goal of essentially priming B.C.’s economy as well as the livability of the region?

J. Bateman: On TransLink, I can answer that pretty quickly because it may not be the first time I’ve heard this question. We’ve been campaigning against transit. We campaigned against TransLink. We were very clear all the way through. We offered a different plan at notranslinktax.ca/betterplan — municipalities applying a small percentage of their future growth.

Municipal government revenues are growing at a far faster rate than provincial, than federal, than inflation. They have money there that they could apply towards these different programs. The entire mayors plan could have been funded by allocating 0.5 percent of their 5 percent annual growth rate to it. So we did offer a different perspective on that.

Our surplus recommendation is 75 percent to debt reduction. That still leaves 25 percent to spend on other priorities.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Out of time.

Spencer, can we take it on notice, please?

S. Chandra Herbert: Yes, we can.

I’m just curious which tax credits — digital media tax credits, Film Incentive B.C. production services tax credits — does the CTF recommend getting rid of in order to move back to income tax cuts?

Also, I’m just curious. You refer to the ever-increasing carbon tax. What do you mean by that, given that the tax has been frozen for a number of years?

J. Bateman: I’ll return that to you by e-mail.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Before the 15th of October, please.

J. Bateman: Before the 15th. Okay.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thanks very much, Mr. Bateman. I appreciate it. Always a pleasure.

Next, we have the Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia — Wayne Braid and Tammy Morin-Nakashima.

Good to see you again. Welcome. As I’ve said before, ten minutes for the presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with about two minutes left, and then you can conclude your thoughts and we can go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

T. Morin-Nakashima: Well, we’ve already been introduced — Tammy Morin-Nakashima, president of the B.C. notaries, and Wayne Braid, chief executive officer. We appreciate the opportunity to speak with you.

B.C. notaries are governed by the Notaries Act of British Columbia and the discipline of our professional society. Today the position of a notary as a member of one of the branches of the legal profession is sanctioned and safeguarded by law. B.C. notaries are unique in North America, providing non-contentious legal services to the public in B.C. for over 100 years. The Society of Notaries represents more than 330 highly trained notary professionals.

To become a B.C. notary, an individual must complete a master’s degree at Simon Fraser University, pass a series of stringent statutory examinations — six of them — and be accepted for membership in the Society of Notaries Public. The society receives over 1,600 application inquiries from the public annually. On average, 20 to 25 students per year are selected. The average age of a B.C. notary is 43, and 55 percent are women. B.C. notaries also reflect many ethnic backgrounds and languages.

British Columbia is one of only two provinces in Canada to offer residents the convenience of working directly with a professional notary to prepare their legal documents. Families and small businesses across the province enjoy unique, ongoing and generational relationships with notaries as they transition through various home purchases and advanced-planning phases of their lives.

[1210]

W. Braid: I think one of the things that we really want to talk to you a little bit about today is the relationship that we have with the public in British Columbia. As Tammy mentioned, there are only two provinces in Canada where there’s an alternate provider of legal services, and British Columbia is one of them.

Notaries have been around since 1868. We were formally put together as a regulatory organization in 1926. You’re not going to find that in any other province except Quebec. This is a province where there is some competition, if you will, for certain legal services in British Columbia. Certainly, we want to make certain that we continue that.

You’ll see in our presentation that there are some discussions going on right now between ourselves and the Law Society, talking about there being one regulator.
[ Page 1942 ]

Lives are becoming a lot more complicated. The look of families has changed in the last 20 years. Their legal needs have changed as well. What we should be looking at in the province of British Columbia is different legal providers. It doesn’t have to just be notaries or lawyers. There could be a lot of other providers as well. That’s what we’re looking at, together with the Law Society. What is it the citizens of British Columbia need for their legal services? How can other organizations, other professionals, fit that need — such as mediation, court workers, health care providers and that sort of thing?

Those are some of the things that we want to talk to you about a bit today.

We know that notaries, for the most part, in British Columbia are involved with citizens during their transaction — purchasing their home or selling their home. So the housing industry is of great interest to us, of course.

We all read the papers. We all read the media and all the talk today about what is happening in the housing industry, the unaffordability and that sort of thing. Certainly, some of our colleagues at BCREA, British Columbia Real Estate Association, are doing some good work trying to determine what is happening in British Columbia. Is it really that non-resident buyer — or, as the media sometimes will quote, “the foreign buyer” — that is driving up the price of housing?

I think for a provincial government…. We all realize that housing is a major economic driver in our communities. We need to make certain that we’re taking care of, especially, the first-time homebuyer. How can we get our children and our grandchildren into homes?

There just isn’t enough data out there. Again, you’ve probably seen in the media some of the quotes that are coming out that aren’t based on any kind of data that’s available. One of the things that we’re doing is we’re going to do a survey of our membership and ask them: “In your practice in the past year, how many non-resident transactions have you done?” Notaries in British Columbia last year did over 125,000 real estate transactions. We’re certain that the data that we can develop will be helpful to government, to look at that and look at the policies that you might be contemplating regarding housing.

Tammy has also got some examples of some clients that she gets in her office — the people in British Columbia and the complex nature of some of these legal transactions we have today because of changing demographics.

T. Morin-Nakashima: I’d like to share a couple of stories with you. I recently had clients in my office. A young first-time homebuyer and his wife were buying a property. To qualify for the mortgage, he was told that he needed to have his parents on the mortgage with him. When I had them attend at my office to sign, the parents…. Of course, in reviewing the documents with them, the bank required that the parents go on as owners of the property.

[1215]

Now, these are sophisticated homeowners. The husband had his own business, didn’t own his own home and made sure that, when he started out in business, his wife owned the property. He’s now suddenly being put in a position where he has to be a registered owner on title.

The complications with that are that means he must change his will. They need to make sure that the power of attorney is in place because if something happened to him and his wife, they own 1 percent of this property. It triggers a probate for them versus just being a guarantor on the mortgage. That was not a conversation that they had at the mortgage broker office.

With the quick closing, there was no time for them to go and look into different options, and they had to proceed on that basis. Now they’ll have to do the extra work behind the scenes.

Another issue that was brought before me this past week was clients who were buying property — young couple, never had any children. They lived together. They’re weren’t married. They separated. It’s been a long time since they’ve been separated. Now she wants to buy out her former common-law husband — on the property — with her new common-law husband.

The issue is that the lender quickly says: “Well, to qualify for a mortgage, you need to get a statutory declaration stating the different obligations that you each have to the property, that the first husband didn’t have any interest in the property, that he is getting paid X number of dollars, that everything’s been settled.”

That borders on a different kind of legal advice, not just dealing with the mortgage. Again, it complicates just to buy out that property. Now, they need specific advice, and we have to direct them in different ways to deal with that.

The other thing that we’re facing, and I’ve seen this numerous times in my office…. With new mortgages, there’s something akin to a debenture, a blanket mortgage that goes on the title. Sometimes it might be exceeding the value of the property.

The clients will come in. They’ll want to know why they are signing a mortgage for $500,000 when, hallelujah, they’ve finally paid everything off. They just wanted a small line of credit of $50,000. Now they’ve pledged their property for this exceedingly higher amount than they wanted.

They don’t understand what that product is all about. They’re in a position where they need that line of credit in place right now. They haven’t had the background information. That’s where notaries are finding we need a broader power to be able to get into details with the client so that we can serve them in the moment so they can get the product that they need.

I’ll turn it back to you, Wayne.

W. Braid: What Tammy is referring to is, under the Mortgage Brokers Act, there’s a section in there that prohibits the notary from giving it if the client needs some advice about how to repay their mortgage.
[ Page 1943 ]

When I first got a mortgage, there was only one way to pay it: by the month. That’s all you could pay it. Today there are numerous ways to do that. You can pay it weekly, bi-weekly, etc.

In the Mortgage Brokers Act, it says that if you give that advice, you’re actually supposed to have a mortgage brokers licence. Regularly, our members do that because it’s going to assist the client — saying: “Look, do you know that you can pay it…? Can you pay once a week? Would that work for you and your family? This is how much that you could save.”

S. Hamilton (Chair): I’m sorry to interrupt. We’re well into our ten minutes, but you’re welcome to conclude now, or you can continue on. It just cuts into your question period time.

W. Braid: Okay. I’ll wrap it up here pretty quick, then.

That’s one of the things we’re hoping, at the end, that you’ll include in your report is that we can enjoy the same exemption under that and do away with any problems that might arise out of that.

The last thing I just will mention again is that notaries are very involved in the housing industry. The problem I see — and I know it’s a problem for the provincial government — is the property transfer tax. We’ve brought that issue to this committee numerous times before. I just encourage government to keep looking at that issue and trying to find some ways to especially assist young homebuyers with that.

We’re open for questions.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. I know the complexity of dancing between notaries public and lawyers. Anyway, it rings a familiar bell.

D. Ashton: Just quickly, how are the negotiations going between yourselves and the lawyers?

W. Braid: We’re still meeting with them. There are some talks going on, as you can imagine.

D. Ashton: Are they productive?

W. Braid: Are they productive? Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. The problem for the Law Society has been the Trinity Western thing. We were asked to look at that, but that fell off their radar for nearly a year because of the Trinity Western issue.

[1220]

D. Ashton: You have a rather gregarious individual, Bill Binfet, who is a very staunch supporter of yours in the Interior.

W. Braid: Yes.

E. Foster: You started to sound like a lawyer with the sometimes yes, sometimes no.

One of the things — and I certainly get it in my office all the time — is the seniors that come in. They’re confused, as most of us are when it comes to all these types of things. We’ve got to be careful where we recommend people go, and we certainly include notaries in all these things.

How does that fit into your game plan, if you will? We’re certainly seeing a lot of it in our office, just on things like real estate holdings that they might have, transferring to their kids. All that — can you get involved in that?

T. Morin-Nakashima: Yes, we do, particularly in estate planning. We’ll have clients come in, and then they’re looking to say that they want to add one child on title to avoid probate. And then we have to have a healthy discussion with them and talk about their estate plan, the long-term cause and effect.

Avoiding the probate fee is not necessarily the only concern that’s on the table. Of course, the capital gain may be a much higher tax that will cause their estate a lot more difficulty as well as circumventing other beneficiaries. And financing, if they ever need to tap into their equities. So we have those conversations in detail with them for their estate plan.

W. Braid: Seniors are very comfortable going to notaries in British Columbia, for whatever reason. It’s a very comfortable thing for them. We make certain that we provide a lot of education to our members. Over 85 percent of our members come to the two conferences we have every year, and at most of those conferences, we’re offering something regarding seniors.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. Thank you for your work. I think some of this will just end up happening with the public pushing for the option. They want the choice. They want the option to get the information. You gave us something new. I never realized that it was so unique to B.C., the issue of notaries.

Just a question around the one regulator. As Dan was saying, I know that you’re in discussions right now with the professions. Are you in support of one regulator, or does it depend on how the discussions go?

W. Braid: It depends on how the discussions go. The one thing that we want to maintain, because we think it’s unique to British Columbia, as you identified, is that the autonomy of notaries stays. The public has told us that as well. Regulation around discipline and audits and those sorts of things can probably be done by one regulator, yeah, but the autonomy is important to us. Thanks for the question.
[ Page 1944 ]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Perfect timing. Thank you very much for taking the time to present to the committee, and enjoy your day. We appreciate it.

Next I’ll invite up B.C. Colleges — Lane Trotter and Colin Ewart. Welcome. As you’re getting settled, I’ll let you know — ten minutes for the presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes to go. You can conclude your thoughts, and then we can go to the committee for questions.

As soon as you’re ready.

C. Ewart: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Colin Ewart. I’m the newly appointed president of B.C. Colleges. This is my colleague Dr. Lane Trotter, president of Langara College and chair of the B.C. Colleges council of presidents.

We’re here today to ask government to make new strategic investments in the B.C. college sector, starting in 2016, to ensure that British Columbians are prepared for the jobs of tomorrow and are first in line to get the highly skilled jobs.

B.C. Colleges is a consortium of public community colleges, serving over 160,000 students annually, with campuses and learning centres in more than 60 communities across all parts of the province. Together, the colleges offer a very comprehensive range of programs, from university studies and baccalaureate degrees to career, technical and trades education.

Students who attend a B.C. college have a high success rate. They’re more likely to live at home and, in doing so, receive the support of their family. Upon graduation, most stay and work in their local community, with over 90 percent of our graduates finding work within the first six months. These facts result in increased prosperity for our students, for their communities, and ultimately greater prosperity for British Columbia.

[1225]

We believe that our colleges help set up British Columbians for success. By 2022, the Labour Market Outlook forecasts that 935,000 jobs will be opening across British Columbia, with the largest percentage — 42 percent — requiring a college education. In addition, it’s predicted that between 2019 and 2022, the demand for college-educated workers across the province will far outpace supply.

The B.C. skills-for-jobs blueprint highlights the urgency to ensure British Columbians are first in line for jobs in the growing economy. Colleges have a vital local role to play in the development of this highly skilled and educated workforce in order that B.C. be competitive globally while growing a prosperous and vibrant local economy.

Having reviewed the questions posed in the budget consultation paper, we’d like to make the following recommendations. You will note that our ideas involve innovative pilot projects and strategic investments that are intended to achieve better outcomes and systemwide improvements.

Firstly, how should government prioritize surpluses? In relation to the B.C. college system, investment in our aging infrastructure is not just a priority; it’s a necessity. Many of our colleges are this year celebrating 50 years, and their age is clearly showing. We need government to invest more in capital infrastructure and classroom equipment to ensure that our students are trained with up-to-date technology and in buildings that meet modern standards.

These infrastructure upgrades will create not only regional prosperity but clearly help produce the highly skilled, job-ready graduates who are key to prime B.C.’s economy. As such, we encourage government to prioritize college infrastructure support, when determining where to allocate surpluses, through a capital renewal strategy that introduces a new multi-year investment plan to significantly increase funding for routine maintenance for B.C. colleges and, secondly, a trades and technology equipment-matching program that sets aside $5 million per year for the next three years starting in 2016-17.

At this point, I’d like to have Lane expand on our other recommendations.

L. Trotter: Thank you, Colin.

It’s a great pleasure to be here today and share with the committee our key investment ideas that respond to the 2016 budget questions. In response to the second question — if new funding is available, how should it be invested to protect priority services and keep life affordable for families? — as you likely know, B.C.’s colleges offer the most accessible and affordable post-secondary education pathways for all British Columbian families.

With campuses and learning centres in every region of the province, our colleges are able to provide students with relevant training and education close to home. This not only helps keep life affordable for families; it helps students stay and work in their home communities after graduation, building stronger, more sustainable communities and regional prosperity.

Additionally, B.C.’s colleges are uniquely able to support aboriginal student success by delivering programming that is specifically tailored to First Nations’ needs, helping to maximize their participation in the workforce and in their communities’ positive development.

It is also important to mention the growing number of international students enrolled at college campuses across British Columbia. These students make a big contribution to our colleges and, in many cases, by joining B.C.’s workforce. In fact, international students contribute over $2 billion annually to the provincial economy.

Ensuring that more programs and services are in place to help all students transition to the workforce is not only necessary, but it’s critical in helping close the job-openings gap.
[ Page 1945 ]

Going forward, we recommend that government, first, double the current funding to the aboriginal service plan program and also allow all institutions to participate with sufficient resources to expand community-based delivery for aboriginal learners.

[1230]

Second, provide $750,000 for development and pilot of a dual-credit framework between K to 12 and the colleges to help transition students to the workforce faster.

Finally, provide $500,000 of one-time funding to develop and implement a systemwide pilot project to identify options and requirements for a B.C. post-secondary credential framework.

Lastly, in response to “How can B.C. colleges help to ensure industry is more competitive,” a recent Conference Board of Canada report found that B.C. skills shortages cost the economy up to $6 billion in foregone GDP and $785 million in provincial tax revenues annually.

For industry in B.C. to remain competitive, they clearly require a highly skilled, technically competent and adaptable workforce, and that’s where our 60 college locations across B.C. can help. Through focused investments, B.C. colleges can respond quickly and help produce more graduates to fill the skills gap.

Specifically, we recommend that government invest in the following: first, a new three-year program to produce more college graduates in the four highest-demand occupational areas — health care, sales and service, business and finance, and trades and technology — starting with $15 million annually in 2016-17, increasing to $30 million in 2017-18 and $45 million in 2018-19; secondly, $650,000 of one-time funding to enable the college system to develop and pilot four new sectorwide courses of high provincial priority specifically related to health care, sales and service, business and finance, and trades and technology; third and final, the allocation of $3 million of one-time funding in 2016-17 to help leverage B.C.’s portion of federal funding to support innovation between college, business and industry.

British Columbia has an increasingly diversified economy that requires a highly skilled and educated workforce to unlock its full potential. Through targeted investments, B.C. colleges can continue to deliver a highly skilled and educated workforce locally, where the jobs are, such as in LNG, oil and gas, hydroelectric and in the small and medium-size businesses. College programs today address 53 of B.C.’s top 70 highest-demand occupations.

In summary, an investment in the colleges is an investment in local jobs, relevant programs that fuel B.C.’s economic prosperity.

Thank you. We look forward to answering any questions you may have.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. We do have questions.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I think it’s one of the things we can be very proud of in B.C. — the community college system, which I believe needs a little support right now as well.

Just a couple of things. One is the question around the aboriginal service plan program. You mentioned that that was limited in its scope, and I’m wondering if that’s limited by the funding or limited by the number of colleges that can participate in the program, first. Then second, will doubling the funding allow that expansion?

The second question…. It’s something I think most people don’t think about, because I think it’s been a shift. We often think of the transition from college to university. I’m hearing more and more from the college system that they’re getting university graduates with degrees coming back to colleges to look at training programs, and I wonder if you have any statistics around that.

C. Ewart: I’ll attempt to answer your first question. Thank you very much for both questions.

Then, Liam, perhaps you can take a stab at the second.

For the first one, I think you had two parts to it. In answer to that, the Ministry of Advanced Education is aware of this, and they’re actually actively working on the amount of funding and the priorities against the aboriginal educational service plan. At the moment, 11 out of the 26 post-secondary institutions in the province receive funding, so obviously there’s a gap of those who get it.

Then, in addition to that, especially for those that have a very high proportion of their aboriginal learners, which would be the colleges, in our case, in the north and obviously in…. Well, actually, in all parts of the province we have many aboriginal learners. There’s just not enough funding in situ at the moment at those colleges to offer programs to the extent that we all want to offer. When you think about our response, which is being worked on right now, to do with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, again, we’ve got lots of aspirational ideas, but again, there’s a funding shortfall.

L. Trotter: With regard to the second part of your question, we do see more students coming from universities back to college, more students going from college to university.

[1235]

In fact, British Columbia has one of the best transfer systems in Canada, if not North America. It’s something we can be proud of. But we’re finding students now creating their own pathways, where they take some courses in universities, some courses in colleges, and our credential framework doesn’t always capture that, which was one of our pilot recommendations.

S. Chandra Herbert: One thing we’ve heard consistently from colleges and universities is the issue of maintenance and the need for capital infrastructure in-
[ Page 1946 ]
vestments. I’m just curious what you’re hearing back from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Advanced Education when you put forward the case for increased investment in maintenance.

I understand there is an accounting debate, which has limited some of this, as the government doesn’t want it to show up on their books. Yet, at the same time, we hear a discussion about self-financing, which could lead to real improvements in infrastructure. Really, it’s a debate over numbers, which really doesn’t change the reality that you need to do the maintenance.

What kind of maintenance are you looking at? Is it a massive amount of deferred maintenance? What have you heard so far from government as to their response?

L. Trotter: In terms of the investment that was made, our college system, in many cases, is now 50 years old. So what we have is facilities that are starting to age and also changes in building code. To ensure that the facilities are current, to current safety standards, investments are required. We are aware that there are investments required across a broad spectrum of the broader public service.

For the colleges, we’re also dealing with upgrades in technology required for wireless, required to make sure…. Students who are coming in don’t come in with just one cell phone. They come in with a cell phone, a tablet, a computer, so they are linking three devices together.

The infrastructure requirements to upgrade buildings, to make sure that we’ve got the technology in place to make sure that the students are able to learn.… The students — how they learn now is very different than, I suspect, when some of us went to school. Those are the things that we need to invest in to make sure that our facilities are safe and that we have modern equipment that keeps students at the appropriate skills level needed by industry when they graduate.

C. Ewart: I was going to add, actually.…

S. Hamilton (Chair): We have one minute left, so you can answer it, or we can take it on notice.

C. Ewart: No, go ahead.

S. Hamilton (Chair): George, you may have to take it on notice anyway.

G. Heyman: Very quickly, you’ve talked about a one-time funding of $650,000 for piloting four sector–wide courses. I know that the Technology Industry Association and others say that B.C. lags most other provinces in undergraduate and postgraduate completion in degrees that are particularly needed in the sector. I’m wondering what specific skills and jobs in the technology sector you would be working to develop with such a pilot project. Seeing as it’s on notice, feel free to answer for all four subsectors.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Could you take that question away? As well, you wanted to respond a little further to Spencer’s question. If you can get us the answers for that before the 15 of October, it can form part of the public record. We’ll have a chance to review it.

C. Ewart: We’d be happy to take it away. Thank you very much for your time today.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I’m sorry, but we have to keep on schedule.

Next we have British Columbia Real Estate Association. Could I invite you on up? Hello. Welcome. As you’re getting settled, ten minutes for the presentation. As you can tell, I’m a bit hard with that. I’ll give you a hand when it’s two minutes to go, and then we’ll go to questions from the committee. The floor is yours.

D. Stathonikos: We will keep the speaking short and leave time for questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee, for the opportunity to present the recommendations of the B.C. Real Estate Association. We appreciate your time and commitment to this consultation process.

My name is Damian Stathonikos. I’m the director of communications and public affairs for the association. I’m joined today by Deanna Horn, our president-elect, a realtor from Langley and a long-serving and well-respected leader in the real estate community.

Our association represents 11 real estate boards in the province and more than 19,000 realtors across B.C. We provide continuing education, advocacy, economic research and standard forms to help realtors provide value to their clients. We are very pleased to see that the budget consultation paper this year addressed the issue of housing affordability. From our perspective, restoring tax fairness for homebuyers would have the broadest and longest-lasting impact.

[1240]

Homebuyers, realtors, elected officials and many stakeholders are concerned about the affordability of housing in this province. Because many British Columbians face some of the highest housing costs in Canada, this topic is everywhere, from the media and our casual conversations.

B.C.’s property transfer tax, which is the highest in the country, places an unfair burden on homebuyers. The B.C. Real Estate Association’s recommendations are intended to ensure a fair approach for homebuyers, both now and in the future.

As you know, the property transfer tax was introduced in 1987. It’s levied at 1 percent on the first $200,000 of the fair market value of a home and 2 percent on the balance. And this structure has never changed, despite the dynamic nature of the real estate market.
[ Page 1947 ]

Therefore, our first recommendation is to increase the 1 percent threshold from its current $200,000 to $525,000. When the tax was introduced, the 2 percent portion was expected to apply to only 5 percent of sales. Last year, in 2014, the 2 percent portion applied to 85 percent of all homes sold. The property transfer tax was originally thought of as a wealth tax, but as you can imagine, it can no longer be described in that way.

Increasing the 1 percent threshold would, yes, result in less government revenue — about $190 million, if this recommendation had been adopted last year. While we recognize this is a decrease in government revenue, it is not significant. In fact, it’s less than the difference between the projected property transfer tax revenue in February’s 2015 budget and the updated projection in September’s first-quarter report. Looked at another way, $190 million is less than 1 percent of provincial tax revenue.

Increasing the property transfer tax threshold would benefit many buyers across the housing continuum, and lower tax revenue could be eased by the increased number of British Columbians who may be able to enter the housing market as a result of a lower tax burden or by homebuyers with more money to spend on products and services related to their home purchase.

Our second recommendation also relates to the property transfer tax. We believe that the 1 percent threshold needs to be indexed using the MLS housing price index, with adjustments made annually. Currently, the threshold is not indexed. That means B.C. homebuyers pay an increasingly unfair amount of property transfer tax per transaction every year. Indexing will ensure that the tax has the same impact on current and future homebuyers. While indexing would result in less taxation revenue, the provincial government would be able to anticipate and account for this in its financial projections.

As you know, housing is a significant economic contributor to the provincial economy. The average housing transaction in B.C. results in $64,500 in expenditures on services, renovations, taxes and other household purchases. Last year, more than 84,000 homes were sold through the Multiple Listing Service, representing an investment of about $48 billion by British Columbians. Our economists forecast that over 100,000 homes will change hands on the Multiple Listing Service this year.

Home ownership is an important part of the foundation of a healthy community and a thriving province. We believe that fair shelter taxes and a thriving economy will help citizens throughout B.C. enjoy an enviable quality of life.

Thank you for the opportunity to present these recommendations. You have more details available in the written submission in your packages, and we’re happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much — succinct and to the point.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you very much. Some of the presentation many of us could probably give by heart, since you’ve been making it for so many years.

I’m curious. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce and a number of local members have approached us making similar recommendations about the lower end of the market. If you think of $500,000 as the lower end, it’s kind of shocking, but that’s the way it is in B.C. and, certainly, in the Lower Mainland.

[1245]

They’ve argued — in order to keep it a revenue-neutral shift — to increase the tax on higher-income or higher-cost housing — maybe $1 million plus. I can’t recall exactly the figure they put on the higher end. What are your members’ thoughts about that in terms of helping the government keep the money even but also in terms of improving affordability and potentially stopping the massive increase every year we’ve been seeing in housing costs? Any thoughts on that?

D. Stathonikos: I think one of the challenges there is: the number of transactions that happens at that very high end of the market is so much fewer than, say, the sub–$1 million transactions. The tax that would need to be on those very expensive properties would have to be quite significant in order to make any impact on the lower end of the market. It’s certainly a possibility.

One of the things we’re looking at is: what are some other options? As you pointed out, this is a topic that is near and dear to our hearts. We’re always trying to come up with solutions that can help balance fairness with that recognition that there is revenue needed for the provincial government.

D. Horn: If I might just add to that. The other part of the equation is that this tax applies to any type of real estate, which includes commercial. Any tax over $1 million would have a significant impact in the commercial market, which of course affects a lot of other things like jobs and so on.

S. Chandra Herbert: I should just clarify that the chamber had made it very clear it was around residential. They weren’t looking at the commercial side.

G. Heyman: The real estate market in B.C. is not uniform. I’m wondering if the association has given any thought to a different threshold in different regions of the province, perhaps tied to the average home price in those regions.

D. Stathonikos: Indeed, we have looked at it. Unfortunately, given the dramatic disparity between prices in the Lower Mainland and elsewhere in the province, again, you’d have to significantly increase the tax, let’s say, outside of the Lower Mainland markets in order to balance
[ Page 1948 ]
what happens in the Lower Mainland. Let’s say not everyone outside of the Lower Mainland would appreciate a higher tax rate for the property transfer tax.

We’ve really tried to look at solutions that are across the board, that can be applied equally. It’s also less administrative hassle for the province to administer a program where there is just a single set of rules across the province.

D. Ashton: Thank you for your presentation. MLS commissions — are they fixed?

D. Horn: No.

D. Ashton: Is it 7 percent, ballpark?

D. Horn: There’s no fixed commission at all in real estate.

D. Ashton: So it’s negotiable?

D. Horn: It’s entirely negotiable.

D. Ashton: With the real estate agent or the company?

D. Horn: With the agent. The real estate agent will certainly negotiate commission in all cases.

D. Stathonikos: One thing that Deanna neglected to mention and that I think is a really important point is that commissions are negotiable but the property transfer tax isn’t. You can have clients that negotiate a commission with a realtor, but they still have to pay the same level of property transfer tax.

D. Ashton: Okay, just a further question. So 7 percent on the first $100,000 and 3½ percent on the remaining — is that a norm in the industry?

D. Horn: No, there is not a norm in the industry.

D. Stathonikos: You’re seeing a lot more different business models in the industry. You have realtors like Deanna who provide a full service. You have other realtors who are happy just to put the listing up on the Multiple Listing Service and other realtors who fall somewhere in between. Every realtor negotiates that level of service with their client based on what the client wants and what the client is willing to pay.

D. Ashton: Good information. Thank you.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for taking the time to present. We appreciate it. It’s good to see you again.

Next we have Andrew Petter, of Simon Fraser University, and Stephen Dooley.

Welcome. Ten minutes for the presentation. I’ll try to give you two minutes’ warning so you can conclude your thoughts, and then we will go to the committee for questions. When you’re ready, the floor is yours.

A. Petter: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the committee for providing us this opportunity to make a presentation.

This is an important year for Simon Fraser University. We’re celebrating our 50th anniversary. I guess what it has reminded us of is just how far the university has come in those 50 years. I hope members of the committee are aware — but I’ll emphasize — that we are now very much a three-campus university, with campuses in Vancouver and in Surrey, as well as our original campus on Burnaby Mountain.

[1250]

We’ve done very well in terms of our reputation and standing, internationally and nationally. We’ve been ranked by Maclean’s as the top comprehensive research university in the country for six of the last seven years. We’re very proud of that, obviously.

We’ve also set a real mission for ourselves as a university to distinguish ourselves as an engaged university, a university that is really known for its close connections with community. That’s not typical for a research university. It may be more typical for smaller universities. It really means that we focus on community engagement, both to benefit our students and our researchers but also, obviously, to maximize the benefit we provide to the communities we serve.

We’re also very proud to be part of what I think is an outstanding system that governments have developed over a number of years in B.C. — a differentiated high-quality post-secondary education system that has very much helped to drive prosperity in this province and has been a key contributor to the diversification of B.C.’s economy. We all know that diversification is, of course, one of the key elements that has enabled this province to stay vibrant, notwithstanding some of the downturns that have been experienced elsewhere in Canada and in certain segments of the economy.

We really, I think, contribute to that high-skilled workforce, the cutting-edge research that does help this province to ensure its long-term prosperity. However, all studies show that we’re facing looming labour shortages and, increasingly, a competitive global knowledge-based economy.

I guess part of my message to you today is: the province can’t afford to let up on its commitment to education and research at the post-secondary level. In fact, a recent Conference Board of Canada study shows we’re already experiencing shortages that are costing the economy and costing the province.

The Conference Board of Canada study that came out earlier this year, based on a major employer survey,
[ Page 1949 ]
showed that due to a lack of qualified graduates — the majority of whom would be university graduates but right across the entire post-secondary sector — our economy is losing $4.7 billion in GDP and government is foregoing over $600 million in tax revenue that would accrue should we be able to provide that skilled labour force to the employers who are looking for it.

With this in mind, I know the Research Universities Council of B.C., which I also chair, made a separate presentation to you. I won’t repeat that presentation, but I will certainly support what they said.

They’ve highlighted the challenges we all face due to recent cuts and some of the unfunded cost pressures we experience in our operating grants and have called for targeted reinvestments in undergraduate and graduate spaces, support for research, innovation and deferred maintenance, and flexibility to allow universities to self-finance capital projects — which really could enable us to build more residences and facilities, create jobs and provide better services to our students through our own income streams, our own revenue sources.

What I want to focus on today, however, in the limited time that the committee has available, is very much on our aspirations for Surrey, which is our highest priority for growth as a university. Before doing that, I do just want to emphasize, though, the other major funding priority we have as a university, and that relates to deferred maintenance at our Burnaby campus.

That campus is 50 years old. It was an instant university, and I’m afraid the facilities are showing the signs of wear and tear that are associated with that aging. There is serious risk, I think, to the facilities if further funding is not provided for deferred maintenance.

We are very appreciative the province increased its funding this past year. However, the reality is that much greater funding is required to keep those facilities from further deteriorating and to ensure that our students and faculty have safe and functional spaces. I do want to reinforce that need in terms of deferred maintenance.

Let me turn to the situation we face here in Surrey. SFU moved into our Surrey facility, our current facility, in 2006, and when we moved into that facility, there was an understanding — in fact, an MOU — between the province and SFU that foresaw continued growth in this area, the huge population pressures. We reached an understanding, through that MOU, that the size of this campus would double, from 2,500 FTEs to 5,000 student FTEs by 2015.

Regrettably, that expansion has not taken place, notwithstanding we’re at 2015. That’s in spite of — unbelievable, I know — the fact that this committee has itself recommended that expansion twice in the last four years. The case today for that expansion is, of course, even stronger than it was in 2006 or even when the committee recommended it.

[1255]

Those spaces are needed to provide equitable access to post-secondary education for this region’s young people, to meet growing labour market demands, not only here but across the province, and to secure B.C.’s economic advantage in the global economy.

To rehearse a few facts that may be well known to you but do bear repeating, the South Fraser is the fastest-growing region of B.C., with a population projected to surpass that of Vancouver by 2036. The region already suffers from significantly less access to post-secondary education than other parts of B.C.

SFU Surrey and Kwantlen offer 12.7 post-secondary spaces for every 100 18- to 24-year-olds in this region. That’s about a third of the B.C. average of 28 seats per 100 in that age group — so already well behind the access that is enjoyed by others across the province.

At the same time, only 16 percent of Surrey residents hold a university degree. That’s less than half the Vancouver average of 33 percent. The Surrey school district has the largest population of aboriginal students in the Lower Mainland, a population that we know is growing fast and is very much in need of education in order to achieve its potential.

The result, unfortunately, is that we’re seeing an increasing number of young people in this area who we’re having to turn away, notwithstanding the fact that they are qualified, as high school graduates, to go to university. The need is especially pressing for students wishing to apply to high-demand programs in areas like applied science.

Our mechatronics program, for example — a highly successful engineering program, 100 percent employment rate. Yet the GPA to get into that program is now upwards of 90 percent, meaning qualified students in the 85 percent percentile are being turned away.

SFU is ideally situated to address this need and this demand. We’re situated in the heart of Surrey. We’re the only B.C. research university with plans to significantly increase our undergraduate student population.

The good news is that we’ve developed a plan for expansion. I won’t go into detail in it. It’s outlined in the written presentation that you have. But it’s very much targeted at trying to meet high-demand needs that will not only serve students well but will serve the economy of this region and of the province in areas like energy and environmental engineering, health sciences and creative technologies.

The model that we’ve developed for this program also draws on our strength in experiential education, in entrepreneurship education and, as befits an engaged university, our strength in co-op education. In fact, we are a major co-op provider in the country. We’re very proud of our co-op programs and the workplace attachment that they provide. They will all be components of this new programming.

In conclusion, what we are looking forward to is working in partnership with government, with sector partners in industry, to really help meet the needs of this growing,
[ Page 1950 ]
youthful population in Surrey — that has such needs but can contribute so much to a growing B.C. economy, can make up for the foregone GDP and the lost tax revenue and can achieve their potential as young people.

We recognize, of course, that the government faces fiscal challenges and difficult choices, but we believe that addressing the unique post-secondary needs of the South Fraser region is an investment in ensuring both that young people achieve their potential and that B.C. has the skilled and flexible workforce this province is going to need to continue to maintain a dynamic economy and to enjoy continued prosperity going forward.

What we are, therefore, asking is that the committee reaffirm the recommendations that were made in the 2011 and 2013 reports — that the size of the Surrey campus does need to be doubled in coming years. We’re asking that you recommend to the province that we work together to proceed with the first phase of that expansion, which would focus on environmental and energy engineering, a real focus in areas that I think are highly relevant to the province and to growth but would also provide general access for undergraduate students to our programs.

With that support…. I know the ministry has us ranked very highly for all of the reasons that I’ve given. Hopefully, we can look forward to that commitment forthcoming in the near future.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much.

D. Ashton: Sir, thank you very much for your presentation.

Just a quick question. I tried to look it up quickly — your endowment fund. What does it run at, ballpark?

A. Petter: Our endowment? I’d have to go and check that out exactly, because it’s broken up into different areas. We have an endowment for our trust. We have an endowment that’s based on bursary. It’s nothing like UBC’s, but I dare not give you the exact number. It’s certainly not…. We don’t rely on our endowment for any operating funding.

[1300]

Endowment funds tend to go to bursary funds and tend to go to support research. They’re not a basis of our operating funds, so I don’t have those numbers.

D. Ashton: Are they utilizing capital?

A. Petter: Rarely, because what we do if we go to get capital is we would seek a contribution from a donor towards capital — very hard to secure. We’ve done it. We got Goldcorp to contribute $10 million to our School for the Contemporary Arts. We’ve had support, but generally, contributions towards capital come out of a one-time contribution or a contribution that’s time limited, not out of endowment.

Our endowment fund is only earning about 5 percent a year now on returns. It’s a relatively small amount and certainly nothing like the sister institution out in Point Grey.

D. Ashton: They were 10-plus. I just looked at that one.

A. Petter: Yeah. I’d be happy to get back to you, Dan.

S. Hamilton (Chair): If you could do that before October 15, if you wouldn’t mind.

A. Petter: Yeah, I will do that for sure.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for the presentation. I’m fascinated that you’re looking so much for the focus on a catchment area — just bringing students primarily from the South Fraser area to SFU. I’m wondering why that specific focus rather than building up the Burnaby campus and attracting students. It’s not that far. I mean, they could still come home at night. You’re not talking about moving out of the area, so why this specific “Let’s do the catchment area for there” rather than looking at other campuses?

A. Petter: It’s an excellent question. A couple of reasons. One is that the presence of SFU in Surrey has been a major driver of encouraging kids from families that have not traditionally thought of post-secondary education…. It encourages those families to start to do so, and we have seen a significant increase in the university transfer rate as a result of our presence and the expansions that have taken place at KPU.

We’ve also accommodated our programs here, with cohorts and the like, to take account of the fact that a lot of these kids coming in need a bit of a different approach to education to encourage them to make the transition from families and backgrounds that may not have been as comfortable in university environments.

The other thing, though, is that we have, with the province’s help and the cooperation of the city of Surrey, assembled the land that is necessary for the expansion here in Surrey.

The program mix we’re looking at is one that is ideally suited to Surrey. Our mechatronics program has a strong focus on energy already, and to expand that area as a first priority would make a lot of sense. Also, the health needs in Surrey really speak to the development of the health programming we’re talking about. In the case of digital or creative technologies, we have a School of Interactive Arts and Technology that’s focused in Surrey.

Members of the committee may know that the Surrey campus kind of came out of the idea of a technical university. It has that strong focus already, so it makes sense programmatically. But let me be clear. While I think the demographics and the demand in this area provide the compelling case, the campus is not one that excludes
[ Page 1951 ]
others, nor does our Burnaby campus exclude students from Surrey.

M. Morris: Good presentation. I’ve been saying this to all the other post-secondary institutions coming from northern B.C. and the interior of B.C.: we all see a deficit in skills. You’ve got down here environmental engineering and health care and whatnot. We’ve found that — the northern medical program, for example — if we train the doctors in the north, they tend to stay in the north. So to the youth in Surrey: “Go north, young man, and see what the province has to offer.”

We’re suffering right now. A lot of the industry up there, a lot of the corporations, are looking for engineers, looking for the different technical side of things. They’re getting people out of the Lower Mainland to go up there, and it doubles and triples the costs. We just can’t find that help up there. Instead of maybe putting the money into a university down in the Lower Mainland here, would the province be served to put that money into the UNBC campus in Prince Rupert, for example? Bring the students up there, have them learn up there on site, and perhaps we can spread those opportunities around.

A. Petter: I think the difference with SFU is because of this commitment we have around engagement. It extends, as well, to the way we deliver programs and the partnerships that we have. For example, we’re right now delivering an MBA program in northwest British Columbia to meet the needs of the northwest in light of the natural gas situation, in partnership with Northwest Community College. We have developed strong relationships with UNBC.

The reality is that most of these programs are ones that, for reasons of equipment and cost, are probably…. It makes significantly more sense to deliver them here, where there’s a strong population base, as well, to fill them. But through co-op programs, we place a lot of students, and would be committed to placing even more, in the north and in other parts of the province, getting those students familiar with working and being citizens throughout the province and contributing.

[1305]

We certainly do not see these programs as only serving the needs of South Fraser but of providing a portal for students who aren’t getting the education they need now to look provincewide.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’ll have to put the last question on notice, to George.

G. Heyman: Very quickly. Surrey has certainly been promoting itself as a technology hub. The mechatronics program sounds very interesting. You cited a very high GPA requirement for that program. Obviously, people at a lower GPA, 85, would be good students.

Does Simon Fraser track, in any way, students who have to leave B.C. to complete their studies elsewhere — how likely they are to not return but seek employment where they’ve gone and how that impacts the shortage of skilled workers in the technology sector in B.C.?

A. Petter: I’ll take it on notice.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Yes, if you wouldn’t mind, please — before the 15th of October.

A. Petter: Okay. Along with the question regarding endowments.

Thank you very much to the committee. I really appreciate it.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

The committee will stand in recess for 30 minutes, and then we’ll reconvene precisely at 1:35.

The committee recessed from 1:06 p.m. to 1:35 p.m.

[S. Hamilton in the chair.]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay, I see sufficient numbers here to establish a quorum, so I’m going to welcome our board of education, Surrey school district 36.

Good afternoon. Welcome. Ten minutes for the presentation. I’ll try to give you a heads-up with two minutes left. Then you can conclude your thoughts, and we’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

S. Wilson: Thank you, Chairperson and members of the committee, for the opportunity to present. I’m Shawn Wilson, chairperson for the Surrey school district. As the largest school district in B.C., with over 70,000 learners, the Surrey school district faces unique cost pressures and leads the way in creative thinking. As governors and supporters of the public education system, we have concerns that we believe are critical to many districts and to the success of public education.

First I’ll talk about capital funding. The lack of capital funding has increased requirements for portable classrooms. Incremental costs are not funded. Every portable classroom costs $15,000 annually to the operating budget. With about 300 portables in Surrey, this has a $4.5 million impact on our operating budget. This equates to about 50 teaching positions. Portable classrooms also occupy much-needed space for children to play in. Portables increase vandalism and add to our carbon footprint and costs.

Surrey currently has four secondary schools forced to run what amounts to double shifts, due to overcrowding. This situation is unique in B.C. and in the past, was usually used only temporarily in response to fire or other crises. For Surrey, it has become the norm as we wait for addi-
[ Page 1952 ]
tional capital funding. While we acknowledge receiving a lion’s share of funding over the past decade, our situation remains critical. Surrey has more students in portables than half of B.C. school districts have in total enrolment.

We therefore request financial consideration for growing districts that exceed their infrastructure student capacity. Our current funding formula compensates districts for enrolment decline. Formula adjustments could also compensate for extraordinary costs incurred by enrolment increases. The playing field is uneven when we must reduce teaching staff to pay for portables while other district budgets are effectively compensated for vacant space.

We also request a well-supported, well-articulated and transparent capital plan in order to manage capital asset depreciation and provide adequate facilities for students. Also, the province needs to address the inconsistency of encouraging school districts to pursue significant economic benefits in recruiting international students while not allowing districts to include these students in school capacity calculations. We ask you to consider recognizing international students in the capital funding formula.

The next concern I’d like to address is shared services. The Surrey school district supports this concept, particularly as it has worked for provincial procurement in the B.C. education marketplace. However, we do not believe that similar savings can necessarily be found in other areas. As the largest school district, and located in a major urban region, Surrey has achieved economies through purchasing power in many aspects of its operation.

We believe shared services don’t always provide savings and efficiencies. Employment practices liability is one. Surrey has an effective and efficient human resources department that has obtained legal services at extremely competitive rates, and we manage our budget and services well. Asking us to pay a premium to manage our labour relations issues through an external agency seems bureaucratic and adds costs we don’t currently incur.

[1340]

There are several aspects of shared services, including procurement, student data, e-mail, transportation and other services. Government must recognize that reluctance to adopt certain shared-services proposals does not indicate opposition to the concept.

In Surrey, we continue to strive for operating efficiencies and real cost savings. It would make no sense to participate in shared services that don’t provide cost savings to Surrey, particularly if it adds cost pressures to our already tight budget. Therefore, we ask government to respect local board autonomy and decision-making when requesting participation in shared services.

Any shared-service proposal must demonstrate a clear benefit to districts through a comprehensive business plan that provides evidence of savings and efficiencies. When that is in place, we welcome participation.

Surrey’s final concern for the committee is exempt staff compensation. The need for a robust, fully funded compensation plan for all exempt staff, including principals and vice-principals, is long overdue. We are currently six years into a zero-percent wage increase for exempt staff. While we recognize that the freeze has been adjusted, it remains in place for some key leadership staff.

The restrictions prevent us from making up ground lost through salary inversion and compression. It is making it increasingly difficult to recruit qualified and competent individuals. Our excluded and exempt managers are central to the public education system and continue to lag behind the employees they lead and supervise. We have and will continue to experience brain drain as talented professionals leave the K-to-12 sector.

While provincial funding was provided for the teachers settlement, our recent CUPE settlement was funded from our existing budget. Funding from our operating budget negatively impacts many areas of the organization and ultimately reduces services to children in order to support unfunded but fair compensation increases.

Our sector lags far behind other public sectors, such as colleges, Crown corporations, universities or hospitals, yet we are lumped in with these agencies under the same framework. To compare and combine us all under one framework is extremely complex, difficult to implement and does not allow us to get to a place that the framework itself articulates.

We ask government to review the current exempt compensation model and provide flexibility within the K-to-12 system to move in a more efficient and effective manner, and we ask that government provide funding to support the framework.

In closing, we are proud of our school district and our accomplishments. We also realize that each year, the province gives us $600 million to run our district. We feel that we are an efficient, effective and highly successful district where innovation thrives and students excel.

We are mindful and diligent in the allocation of public funds, and we realize that since 2001, we have received more than $335 million in capital improvement for our district, which is the most of all school districts in the province over this period.

We simply know that our capital challenges remain extreme in a municipality which welcomes approximately 1,000 people per month. The head count enrolment for Surrey this school year is 928 students over what we had the previous year. This is equivalent to two full-time elementary schools. Our pressures remain and are very real.

We feel strongly about our partnership with government and the relationships that we have, whether they are capital, finance or the learning division. We have great respect for our colleagues and value our working relationship. Our desire and willingness to work with all governments is well documented. However, we respectfully submit this presentation, as additional financial support from government is required in order for us to continue to strive to make the B.C. public education model world-class.
[ Page 1953 ]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. I’ll go to the committee for questions.

[1345]

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you for the presentation. It’s something we’ve heard from teachers already, and certainly, some of our colleagues in Surrey have made this very clear to us — local MLAs.

When you talk about the playing field being uneven and you having to reduce teaching staff to pay for portables, I’m just curious: what does that look like? You’re obviously increasing the number of students, whether you want it or not. Is that leading to overcrowded classrooms? What kinds of teachers are getting chopped, so to speak, in order to pay for a portable?

S. Wilson: Well, the relationship is…. The additional costs that we incur because of portables — the cleaning, the hydro, the carbon footprint and whatnot — the total sum of that…. If we didn’t have all of that, it equates to about 50 teachers that we would be able to use in support of other programs in the school district. Does that answer your question?

S. Chandra Herbert: It does. The follow-up was just the other point you made around international students and the capital funding formula. Some districts are much better at attracting international students. If they were allowed to be included in the capacity, what would that equal out for Surrey?

S. Wilson: Well, it would help to…. If you looked at it and you…. We already have space problems because of lack of capital funding. Now you bring in international students, which government encourages. These students do take up space. In one or two schools, it’s really exacerbated. Throughout the district in general we can do it.

If you looked at the schools where we’ve had to go to double shifts, what does it look like? Well, you have students doing PE exercises in hallways. It’s completely unrealistic for a school that was designed to house 1,200 people to house 2,000 people. If you included the international students in the capital funding portion, then we think we would at least have some relief in terms of more available cash.

S. Gibson: Thank you for your presentation. I think we’re all aware of the tensions that are facing a high-growth area like Surrey.

Can you comment a bit about catchment areas and schools of choice within the Surrey paradigm? I know my district in Abbotsford, where I live, is using that a lot more to get students to go to other schools. About 22 percent of students in Abbotsford school district go to public schools of choice as a way to spread the load around throughout the district and give options for students. I wonder if you could comment on that paradigm — how it might apply in Surrey.

S. Wilson: Are you talking about private schools?

S. Gibson: No. These are public schools, not private. This is 22 percent of students going to traditional schools — and a way to spread the talent around, if you will.

S. Wilson: Oh, I see what you’re saying. For school districts that have declining enrolment, that frees up space, so they can offer these programs to the public in order to try and fill that space. But in Surrey, where you’re already squeezed to the beams, it’s very difficult for us to offer any more choice programs that we already have, because where do we put them?

We can’t start down a road that says: “Let’s put catchment area kids somewhere else and open up a traditional school.” I mean, the public would just be outraged if you tried to do that. We try — and we’ve done a pretty good job of trying — to provide French immersion programs and traditional programs and other interesting programs for the public to have a choice with. But it’s very, very difficult when you really have literally zero space to do it.

You know, you want these programs to grow. You need to be able to put them in a school where there’ll be some years, year after year, they’ll be able to continue to go there. Does that answer your question?

S. Gibson: Well, it does. But my supplementary…. I would presume that some areas of Surrey school district are under-enrolled and some that are overenrolled. Is that right — geographically?

S. Wilson: Boy, there wouldn’t be many.

W. Noye: Let me try. I think I understand where he’s coming from on this one, Shawn.

What we’ve found when we’ve done our demographic planning and analysis would indicate that most choice programs’ students come from the catchment area — about 75 percent. We do attract about 25 percent of the students outside the boundaries, but we don’t attract large numbers. I think that’s what you’re asking.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay, we’re beating up the time clock on one question here. I’m going to move on to Claire, because we only have a minute left.

[1350]

C. Trevena: I hope this isn’t a redundant question. The capital plan. You have enough students — too many students — for two whole new schools. Where are you with your capital plan for building new schools and moving students out of portables?
[ Page 1954 ]

S. Wilson: Currently we have a secondary school in the Clayton region that will be starting construction, I believe, very soon — within months. We have a site, the property, in Grandview, but we don’t have capital funding approved for the school there yet. That’s a really pressing need. In Surrey, the Grandview area would help support the overcrowding at the Earl Marriott. A lot of the Grandview students would be…. We’d be able to reduce our Earl Marriott problem significantly.

Clayton Elementary. There’s a need for that elementary school in the Clayton region, which is a dramatic growth area in Surrey.

S. Hamilton (Chair): That just killed the clock, gentlemen. I’m sorry. But any further commentary on that, or if you’d like to dissect some more what Simon said, send it into the committee in writing before October 15. It’ll form part of the public record. We have a chance to read it and understand your answers.

S. Wilson: Okay. We appreciate that opportunity very much. Thank you for hearing us.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Now, B.C. Wood Specialties Group — Mr. Brian Hawrysh.

Welcome. Ten minutes to present to the committee. I’ll try to give you a wave with two minutes left. Then we’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

B. Hawrysh: I think there’s a PowerPoint being distributed. I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t going to have the chance to do a PowerPoint, but I thank the quick actions of the staff here to have this reproduced.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Brian Hawrysh, and I’m the CEO of B.C. Wood Specialties Group. B.C. Wood is a non-profit association that represents the value-added wood products manufacturers across the province. I’m here today to talk to you a little bit about the value-added wood products industry and an exciting new provincial initiative that’s designed to encourage growth within this sector.

Just an overview of the sector on page 2. The value-added sector is an important component of the overall forest products industry in the province. It represents about 25 percent of the B.C. industry in terms of sales, employment and fibre usage. The industry is regionally dispersed, supporting many smaller and medium-sized communities throughout the province. It’s largely made up of small and medium-sized enterprises. Over 50 percent of the value-added sector is companies with less than 20 employees and less than $10 million in sales.

There are seven sectors that we divide out the industry, including engineered wood products; manufactured homes; log home and timber frame; prefabricated homes; millwork; cabinets; and specialty lumber.

The next page, 3, gives you some examples of the interesting products that are manufactured within the value-added sector. The term “value-added” means different things to different people, but perhaps the most widely accepted definition of the term is any wood products manufacturing that goes beyond the basic production of lumber from logs.

The next page indicates that many small and medium-sized manufacturers are regionally diversified and provide economic benefits to well over 100 communities within the province. Many of you will have value-added wood products manufacturers in your own constituencies.

To emphasize the nature of the B.C. value-added wood products, here’s a comparison of the characteristics of the commodity lumber sector, which most of you will be familiar with, and the value-added sector. The commodity sector is dominated by a few very large companies that produce a relatively narrow range of products. The value-added sector is made up of many, as I said, small and medium-sized firms that produce a broad range of products.

[1355]

The approach — marketing differently. The commodity lumber manufacturers rely heavily on generic promotion of species and applications like wood-frame construction, whereas the value-added producers really rely on promoting specific applications in product and geographic niches.

I’ve given you, on page 6, a little bit of a historical overview of where the number of firms and sales and employment have gone since 1990 up until 2012, when we did a last survey of the industry.

Throughout the latter part of the 1990s and up to 2006 was a period of the greatest growth in sales in the sector, which coincides with the significant expansion of the residential construction sector in the United States. During this period, the number of firms in employment remained relatively constant. From 2006 to 2012, the number of firms and sales and employment within the sector has declined by approximately 20 percent, and that’s, again, linked very closely to the downturn in the U.S. housing sector.

In terms of percentages, the sales of B.C. value-added wood products shifted dramatically in the mid-2000s. With sales into the U.S. failing, manufacturers turned to supply the relatively strong construction markets in B.C. and the western part of Canada. To a lesser extent, the decline of the Asian markets that began in the mid-1990s rebounded during this period.

A couple of important take-aways from these slides. The importance of the U.S. market to B.C.’s value-added manufacturers can’t be understated. Having said that, it’s a two-edged sword. It’s also very important for us to develop and maintain a diversified portfolio of markets so that we’re not beholden to one market. There currently exists a tremendous opportunity to expand and recapture the sales that we lost in the U.S. since 2006.
[ Page 1955 ]

Although the next slide, on page 8, is a little dated, it’s interesting to note that the U.S. market for primary wood products — your standard two-by-fours, two-by-sixes — is about $35 billion, and we have about a third of that market. By comparison, the specialty wood products market is approximately $200 billion, and we currently only have half a percent of that. So the opportunity to expand sales of value-added wood products in the United States is significant for the small and medium-sized producers in this industry, and it will be their first step that they take into export activities.

I’ve shown, on page 9, a little more recent data, a study we completed just last year, that shows the sales for the last five years. Since the decline in sales from 2006 to 2011, sales have actually increased over the last four years, so that’s a very positive sign. The strongest subsectors were the structural wood products, primarily engineered wood products and millwork. These increases, again, were linked with a resurgence of the renovation, repair and new house construction sectors in the U.S.

Overall, the value-added wood products markets in the U.S. west, including Texas, grew from about $550 million in 2012 to $656 million in 2014, and that’s expected to increase about 30 to 40 percent over the last three years. There are also tremendous regional opportunities in Washington, Oregon and Colorado. The results of this study really further emphasize the opportunities that exist in the United States, particularly the western part of the U.S., for B.C.’s manufacturers of value-added wood products.

Having provided a bit of background on the industry, I’d like to just mention a couple of things about B.C. Wood. As I mentioned, we’re a non-profit trade association. We’ve been operating for 25 years now. Our mandate is very simple. It’s to help create a competitive value-added wood product sector in the province which facilitates growth in the industry and provides benefits to the province itself.

The support we provide industry comes in the form of training and assistance in business and marketing plans, market intelligence, support for companies travelling overseas into the market, and coordinating trade development activities like missions and trade show activities in those markets.

[1400]

B.C. Wood, as I said, has a 25-year history, and we’ve recorded over $400 million in incremental sales in that period.

The main purpose of my presentation was to tell you of an initiative that I’m very excited about. For the past year, B.C. Wood and other organizations have been working with the province to develop a strategy to lead to renewal of the value-added sector. The objective of the strategy is to establish the groundwork — really create an environment for the value-added wood products industry, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to thrive and flourish.

The six recommendations coming out of the discussion paper are highlighted on page 13. It includes: enhance market development activities, primarily in the U.S.; develop a skilled labour pool through the province, the skills-for-jobs blueprint; improve the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to wood products research; ensure access to fibre through B.C. Timber Sales; and negotiate exemptions from the duties of the new softwood lumber agreement for value-added producers.

That really is the extent of my presentation. I would like to recognize the support and work that have been done by the provincial government on the initial phase of the development of this value-added strategy, and I would like to ask for your ongoing support as we move forward into the implementation phases of this work.

We may have a few minutes for questions, if you will.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We do. Thank Mr. Hawrysh. I appreciate that.

I will go to the committee and start with Eric, please.

E. Foster: Thank you very much for your presentation.

Looking at the two bar graphs you have, you are showing significant growth in the industry over the last number of years, which is very commendable, especially in some of the down years that we’ve had — that you’ve managed to keep your head above water.

The question. When I look at your last page here — marketing plans, business marketing training and so on…. Is this an ask, from you to us, to get involved?

B. Hawrysh: We’re at the second phase of this — implementing the strategy. A discussion paper was developed over the last 14 months. We’ve provided feedback. It will be made public in the next week or so by the current government. There will be an implementation phase where the government works with industry to develop action plans, and there will be an ask for dollars. It won’t be a large ask, because there is funding available under current programs.

What will likely happen will be an ask to redefine the running rules. The programs that exist are primarily there to support the primary industry to go into markets like India and China. That has very little interest for the value-added sector. The programs are designed and built to support the primary industry’s needs. Those are very important. We need a healthy primary industry.

The ask will be: can we have a second set of rules for the value-added industry, where our needs are different?

E. Foster: Do any of your members or you as an organization go on any of these trade missions?

B. Hawrysh: Extensively. I’ve been, with Minister Thomson for the last five years, into Asia. We have staff in China, Korea and Japan that support those missions,
[ Page 1956 ]
and we do over 25 missions and trade shows around the world on an annual basis.

E. Foster: Perfect.

S. Chandra Herbert: One thing I consistently hear is the need for access to wood so the value-added sector can actually add the value. It’s a real challenge getting wood in some areas. I’m just curious if you had any thoughts on how we can help companies that want to do value-added manufacturing get greater access to B.C. timber.

Then the second part is…. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to review it yet, but I understand there was a leaked draft of the TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, which included some, out of Japan, arguing that Canada and B.C. needed to basically get rid of any limits on log exports. Just curious if your members had any thoughts on that.

[1405]

B. Hawrysh: Yeah. Obviously, the issue around log exports and access to fibre is a fairly charged issue. It must be kept in mind that it’s important for a couple of the subsectors within the value-added. The rest of them really don’t care.

They’re not processing that fibre. They’re importing cherry and maple from eastern Canada to make kitchen cabinets. So for the simple reman industry, it’s important. For the log home and timber frame industry, it’s tremendously important. They collectively represent about 40 percent of the industry overall.

I recognize it’s an important issue. I think there are safeguards within the operations of the TEAC committee that would ensure that there’s adequate supply if those safeguards are enforced properly. I think maybe that’s where there are some concerns — that the log export rules are not well understood and that the regulations are not properly or adequately enforced.

The access to fibre. The government is working on B.C. Timber Sales, community forests, timber licences and First Nations licences. I think those will provide a tremendous boon to the industry itself.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’re right out of time. I’m going to take the next two questions on notice, if I can get you to respond in writing to the committee.

B. Hawrysh: Absolutely.

S. Gibson: A really quick question. In the agri-industry, of course, value-added is taking blueberry and drying it. There are many examples of that in my own community.

I would be interested in knowing, in value-added, whether there are opportunities to take residue or wood products that would normally be discarded or low utilization and, through a value-added paradigm, turn them into something more valuable than was first thought at the time. I think this might be an interesting discussion at some point.

B. Hawrysh: Yes, very much so.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Before October 15, Mr. Hawrysh, if you could respond with an answer to that question, I would appreciate it. Make sure the committee sees it all.

Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate that.

Next we have the Pembina Institute. Matt Horne, if you could come forward. While you’re walking here, ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to give you a wave with a couple of minutes left, and you can conclude your thoughts. Then we’ll go to the committee for questions. If you’re ready, the floor is yours.

M. Horne: Thank you very much, everyone. Good afternoon.

I’m with the Pembina Institute. We’re an environmental organization focused on energy and climate change issues in Canada. I wanted to present on the province’s forthcoming climate leadership plan and, in particular, where the budget relevance to that plan is.

Outline-wise, I’m going to give just a little bit of background and our perspectives on the climate action plan to date and how I think that sets up effectively for a successful climate leadership plan.

Diving right in…. I guess these are numbered here. So slide 2 at the bottom left corner. I think we can look at the policies the province brought into place in 2008-2009 — by and large, environmentally successful. The chart here is showing some results from Sustainable Prosperity and research they did looking at per-capita fossil fuel consumption in the province.

We see roughly, in 2008-2009, a divergence between B.C. and the rest of Canada — not entirely climate-policy-related. But policies like the carbon tax, the low-carbon fuel standard and the clean energy requirements are all, I think, defensively part of that divergence in trends between where B.C. has been moving over the last seven years and where the rest of Canada is going. So that’s a positive, certainly from an environmental perspective.

In terms of the next slide, I think one of the big concerns around climate change policy is what it means economically — lots of concerns when the province first brought in the climate action plan that the carbon tax, in particular, was going to be a negative economically for the province.

What the two lines here show — it’s difficult to see both lines because they’re basically overlapping each other — is how GDP has performed in B.C. versus the rest of Canada. It would be difficult to make a case that the climate action plan has helped B.C., but there’s certainly not an argument based on the GDP numbers that the climate action plan and those policies have hurt B.C.’s economy.
[ Page 1957 ]

On slide 4, just to bring a little bit more tangible…. There is really an interesting mix of clean energy and clean economy sector already in place in B.C. Those are the companies, whether they’re run-of-river producers, B.C. Hydro, clean-tech companies like Nexterra, Pulse…. There’s a really interesting collection around the province.

Just some numbers there. About 123,000 British Columbians are employed in those collective sectors and soon to be over 150 renewable energy projects around the province and 200-plus companies making up the clean-tech sector in the province.

[1410]

You’ve got an interesting diversity of projects around the province — companies that run the projects employing a fairly significant number of British Columbians. They’re all both contributing to lower emissions today and also setting up the possibility for lower emissions continuing into the future.

The last one, just in terms of the successful track record…. This is slide 5. This is some polling data we pulled from Environics. It’s a fairly long series of polling, specifically looking at the carbon tax and whether or not British Columbians are supportive of it. We had sort of a low at around 40 percent in July 2008 and sort of fairly steady movement up there till the last couple of polls they’ve conducted over the last few years. Right around 60 percent of British Columbians support that policy.

We do have public opinion research looking at some of the other policies like the low carbon fuel standards, the commitments that B.C. has made as part of the Pacific Coast Collaborative. In general, we are seeing pretty strong support for that direction across the province.

That’s the past seven years. In terms of moving forward, the province, this April, committed to updating that plan and developing a climate leadership plan. The draft is scheduled for December of this year. I do think the timing is right for that. We looked at…. We have had some environmental successes. Environment Canada and other modelling exercises are projecting B.C.’s emissions to rise. We have a targeted cut of 33 percent by 2020. Environment Canada, in this case, is forecasting an 11 percent increase over the next five years, so there is a big divergence. If we’re going to get anywhere close to that target, the consensus, and this was affirmed in the province’s climate update from last July, is that stronger policies will be needed.

We are also seeing support within B.C., and I think with the wildfires and the droughts this summer, it was an elevated conversation. Definitely across the province — people I’m talking to — there is a concern about the issue and a receptiveness to new solutions. We’re also seeing movement around the continent. Probably the most surprising is the movement in Alberta. They’re also on a December-January timeline this year — I think some real optimism that there could be some big movement there. Ontario and Quebec are moving ahead with next phases on their climate plan. As part of the Pacific Coast Collaborative, you also have Washington, Oregon and California states.

Not everyone in North America, by any means, is moving at this point. But there are more than pockets of progress and some interest from across the continent.

In terms of the recommendations, we’ve pulled these out of our broader submission of the climate leadership plan process. These are the ones that would be budget relevant. You have other things like vehicle standards and building codes that also have to be part of a successful climate leadership plan. But I’m not going to touch on those today. I grouped these into sort of three categories: encouraging innovation, investing in infrastructure, investing in the public sector.

In terms of encouraging innovation and looking at those improvements in energy efficiency, transitioning to more renewable energy, there are three pieces in there we’ve highlighted.

[C. James in the chair.]

First would be next steps on the carbon tax, and I’ll go into that in a second. Second would be incentives for high-performance buildings and really encouraging the province to move, given the incentives in place that encourage big jumps in building performance. The third would be support for emerging clean energy companies.

B.C. has actually done very well at sort of capitalizing on some of the federal funding that’s existed through Sustainable Development Technology Canada. There isn’t a lot of provincial support for that right now. There’s an opportunity to increase that and attract more of that investment to the province and help those companies grow from small, emerging companies into bigger ones.

The second, investing in infrastructure. We’re not going to sort of see the level of change that the province is targeting just with the market-based signals. There is a need for the province to invest in some of those. The big categories would be transportation, whether that’s transit or electric vehicle infrastructure, and also electricity transmission and making sure that those pieces are there to enable the transition that we want to see happen.

The third, investing in the public sector. There’s, I think, a really interesting opportunity for the province’s buildings and fleets to take a leadership role in showing what some of those transitions can look like. With new buildings in the province, are there opportunities to build those to a Passive House standard or look at really deep energy retrofits in some of the province’s buildings?

[S. Hamilton in the chair.]

Just to dive into the carbon tax in a little bit more detail. The reason here would be that it has been really sort of the core policy in the province’s first phase of its cli-
[ Page 1958 ]
mate action plan, both economically and environmentally successful, and it’s received, I think, quite well-merited praise across the country and around the world for the design of that policy.

What we are recommending is to restart annual increases of $5 to $10 per tonne. Broaden the coverage of the carbon tax. Right now it applies to all fossil fuel combustion, and we’d like to see that broadened to include all sources of carbon pollution that can be accurately measured. With that increase in rate, make sure there is an increase in protection for low-income households. I think the first phase was designed very well. It’s a fairly simple exercise to scale that up.

[1415]

The last would be to address competitiveness impacts, particularly for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed sectors. I think there’s an increasing body of evidence around this, and if the province does move ahead with ongoing increases to the carbon tax, we do start to bump up against competitiveness issues. I think it’s important to figure out ways of addressing those and ways of addressing that don’t undermine the incentive to reduce carbon pollution.

Earlier this year, in the province’s budget, the program for the cement sector, I think, is a good example to potentially build on. You have a program that is designed to help the cement sector transition to cleaner sources of energy. They still have the incentive of the carbon tax to make that transition, but there’s some support from the province. I think there’s reasonable evidence that they are in that zone of being quite emissions-intensive and trade-exposed that support can be merited there.

To conclude, policies like the carbon tax, the clean energy requirements and the low-carbon fuel standard really have helped make B.C.’s climate action plan both an economic and environmental success. The timing is right to build on that success, and I think the 2016 provincial budget is an important opportunity to put in place some of those pieces for a success.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. Do we have questions?

G. Heyman: Thanks, Matt. You mentioned a body of evidence to show some of the problems on competitiveness impacts. If you were able to provide any studies with respect to that to the committee that would form part of the record by October 15, that would be great.

Similarly, if you have additional examples to the cement one that you referenced on positives ways to address that without losing the incentive to reduce emissions, that would also be great, although I think we’re all aware of the cement one.

We’ve had a number of presentations that claim that the carbon tax has departed from the original revenue-neutrality design, and that it’s been…. When pressed, some presenters have said that instead of income tax cuts, we now have a series of what they called boutique tax credits. I wonder if you might comment on that from your perspective.

M. Horne: Yep. I will send you the information by the 15th.

There has definitely been, I guess, an evolution in the carbon tax, tax cut since it was first brought in. When it was first brought in, you had personal income tax cuts, corporate income tax cuts and low income tax credits. They comprised the entire source of revenue.

I can send you a chart on this. Over the seven years, there’s been an other category that’s grown to about 25 percent of the revenue. That includes things like the farm property tax credit. There’s a film industry tax credit.

There’s a variety in there that some people would describe as boutique, and it is definitely not as clean and simple a design as was originally brought in. I would say it still fits the legal definition of revenue neutrality though. It hasn’t violated that in any way that I could see.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your presentation. I’ve got two just very quick clarification questions. You mentioned the clean energy economy employs more than 123,000 British Columbians. Did you say that includes B.C. Hydro?

The second one is that, on slide No. 6, we’ve got a 33 percent target reduction in carbon emissions, and Environment Can forecasts an 11 percent increase. Is that forecast for B.C., or is that for Canada as a whole?

M. Horne: To the first question, yes. That would include B.C. Hydro. It’s referencing a number from the GLOBE Advisors. I can send you that reference. And the second question — those are B.C.-specific numbers from Environment Canada.

C. Trevena: So Environment Canada is expecting them to go up, even though B.C. says we’re coming down.

M. Horne: Yep. That’s from their trends report last summer.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thanks, Mr. Horne. Can you remind us: what are the sources in B.C. of carbon pollution that aren’t currently receiving the carbon tax? I think many people think that everything that’s carbon pollution gets taxed, but it would be helpful if you could…. What would broadening it capture?

M. Horne: Essentially, the carbon tax applies to almost all the fossil fuel combustion in the province. That’s about 70 percent of the province’s emissions. You have what are called non-combustion sources. That could be things in the natural gas sector, methane that leaks from pipelines. When we strip CO₂ from raw natural gas, it gets vented
[ Page 1959 ]
to the atmosphere. The cement sector has some chemical processes that release greenhouse gas emissions. And then agriculture and waste as well would be your major sources. That mix of sources accounts for about 30 percent of the province’s emissions.

S. Gibson: Site C. Clean energy. Your comments.

M. Horne: We’ve looked at it. I guess the province is pretty clear they’re wanting to move ahead building it. I think economically and environmentally and from a First Nations support perspective, there are probably options that we would see as better ones.

[1420]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Mr. Horne, thank you very much for taking the time. I appreciate it, as always. Have a good day.

Next, could I call on the Kwantlen Student Association — Alex McGowan and Patrick Meehan, please.

Welcome, gentlemen. While you’re getting settled, I’ll let you know that you have ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes to go so that you can conclude your thoughts. Then I can go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

A. McGowan: Thank you very much for having me here. I’m Alex McGowan, of the Kwantlen Student Association. I’m a student. I’m elected by my peers to represent the approximately 18,000 students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Kwantlen students live across the Lower Mainland but are particularly concentrated in the South Fraser region — the municipalities of Richmond, Delta, Surrey, White Rock and the Langleys.

I’ll jump right in. Our recommendations to this committee…. We have five recommendations. The first one is to reduce the interest rate charged on student loans to zero percent. Currently B.C. has the highest interest rates on student loans in the country. We’re tied with New Brunswick at 2.5 percent above prime.

There are precedents for bringing these interest rates down. Manitoba recently brought the interest rates down to zero percent, and Newfoundland and Labrador brought them down to zero percent as well, before eliminating the need to repay entirely.

A key problem with charging interest rates, and such high interest rates, on student loans is that you’re making education more expensive for the people who need to take out student loans. These are people who already don’t have the financial resources to pay up front. They’re paying, on average, up to $6,000 more, just to get their education, than someone who can pay up front — which means that it hurts the meritocratic nature of the education system that we hope to strive for. We believe the government can and should bring the interest rates down to zero percent, at a cost of $40 million.

The next ask that we have is to establish a comprehensive, needs-based grant program. B.C. is the only province in the country that doesn’t have a needs-based grants program. The only grants available to students in B.C. are through the federal Canada student grants program.

Needs-based grants are a really effective way of making education more affordable and accessible to the people who need that support the most, while still maintaining a revenue source of income from people who can afford to pay. All other provinces have realized this, recognized this, by establishing a complementary needs-based grants program to the federal one. We think it’s really important to establish a program like that here in B.C. The estimated cost of that would be $97 million.

The next recommendation we have for this committee is to allow post-secondary institutions to take on loans for the purpose of building student housing. Currently in B.C. the province does not allow public institutions to take on debt — which seems fair, in that they don’t take on risky ventures that, then, the province is on the hook for. But with student housing, currently, for institutions that have student housing, there are very long wait-lists for that housing, and every year, thousands of students don’t get into the residence that they would like to.

What this means is that there is significant unmet demand. We know for a fact that KPU, Capilano and a number of other institutions want to build housing but can’t, because of this. We know there’s unmet demand for this housing, which means this debt is safe. It’s safe debt. It’s good debt to take on, because you’ve got a guaranteed revenue stream. Allowing post-secondary institutions to construct housing means that they will have that guaranteed revenue once they build that capital infrastructure.

The benefits to building student housing are large. You reduce the strain on transit and transportation infrastructure, as fewer students are using it to go to and from their home and school. You free up time for students to complete their education faster. We’re seeing that more and more students are taking longer to get their degree. If they can live and study on campus, they can complete their degree faster and participate in more extracurricular activities, which build the skills, the personal and professional development that allow them to finish their degree faster and be more employable when they’re finished.

[1425]

The most exciting and fascinating part of allowing universities to take on debt for the purpose of building student housing is that the government, at zero cost, can facilitate the construction of thousands of new spots of affordable housing. These are students, so they take on some of the lowest market rental housing in the community, and if they can live on campus, they’re freeing up that space for others.

So you bring down the cost of housing for people who need it brought down, and you’re facilitating the con-
[ Page 1960 ]
struction of affordable housing. Again, at zero cost, it’s a great way to invest in affordable housing.

Also, an interesting part for Kwantlen Polytechnic University is that we have a lot of short-term trades programs. A lot of students travel to Kwantlen from outside the community, from rural communities, northern and central B.C., to get trades certificates and diplomas — like plumbing, electrician, that sort of thing.

They come to Kwantlen for two- to nine-week programs, which means they can’t afford to rent. They’re not here long enough to rent housing in the community, which means a lot of them are being forced to stay in hotels, which is extremely expensive, and it’s dramatically increasing the cost for these trades students.

If we can build housing at our Cloverdale KPU tech campus, we can support those students and bring down that cost that’s associated with getting these diplomas. This means these trades students are more likely to get that education and then bring that skill back to their community.

Our next recommendation to this committee is to increase the number of post-secondary seats south of the Fraser. Right now the Kwantlen region — the South Fraser region — is the fastest growing in B.C. However, South Fraser has funding for only 12.7 seats per 100 18- to 24-year-olds, whereas the Lower Mainland average is 25.1. So the South Fraser region is dramatically underserved for post-secondary seats.

The Surrey Board of Trade recently conducted an extensive study. They recommended tripling the number of post-secondary spaces south of the Fraser, which we think is very important. Allowing students to study where they live makes education more accessible and more affordable. We’ve seen that the high school to post-secondary transition rate is lower south of the Fraser than north of the Fraser, so we believe that it’s very important to increase the number of seats.

In line with the recommendations of Kwantlen Polytechnic University last year, we’re asking for funding to increase the number of full-time-equivalency seats at Kwantlen Polytechnic University by 2,500, which would increase the size of KPU by 25 percent. We think this is a very important step to make to serve the region properly for post-secondary education.

Our final recommendation to this committee is to make adult basic education free again. Adult basic education includes English-as-a-second-language training.

The B.C. government used to provide funding to ensure that adult basic education, or high school–level education, was free to all British Columbians, but recently it has allowed institutions to be charging for it. One of the big problems with this: this is high school–level education, and we think it’s extremely important that this is made free so that everybody has this. If you’re charging for a basic level, basic tenets of supply and demand show that fewer people are going to access it, and we don’t want that for this sort of education.

ESL is a vital service for immigrants. It helps them to thrive in their communities, both socially and economically, and will help for their success and integration in Canada.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation.

I’ll go to the committee for questions, if I have any.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your presentation. I’m interested in your…. We’ve heard from a number of student associations and others, and we’ve heard very clearly about the issue of costs of education. I have to say, I benefited from getting a grant to go to university, when I went to university. It’s something that…. I can see why people are put off going to university, when they’ve got to take out loans and they know they’re not going to get a grant.

[1430]

In your introduction here, you say that one of the things the student association does is run a food bank. I’m wondering what level of takeup you’re seeing at that food bank. Do you see that as a direct relationship to the cost of education and the cost of having a loan system?

A. McGowan: We have seen a significant increase in the use of our food bank over the last couple of years, and I really do think that that is because education is getting less affordable. A lot of our students do use that, and it’s increasing significantly.

C. Trevena: Do you have any numbers of how many students are coming through any one week or month?

A. McGowan: I don’t know those numbers off the top of my head, but I can definitely get them to you.

C. Trevena: That’d be great. Thank you.

S. Chandra Herbert: It’s just a question around point 3, where you talk about letting post-secondary institutions take on debt for building affordable housing for students.

First, I just want to say thank you for acknowledging housing as part of this big affordability issue we’re facing in B.C. Have you been given any indication why the government refuses to do this? I know they did it for…. The expanded Port Mann Bridge took on a massive amount of debt and then claimed it wasn’t debt because it was going to be self-financing. You’re making the case here that it is self-financing to build student housing. Any sense of why the resistance to this when they felt they could do it at the Port Mann?

A. McGowan: My understanding is that the point hasn’t been made clear that it would be self-financing
[ Page 1961 ]
and that it’s just a simple “public institutions shouldn’t take on debt” sort of perspective.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for taking the time to present to the committee, and thanks for the work you do on behalf of the students at KPU.

We do not have our friends from the Progressive Contractors Association here yet, but we do have our friends from the B.C. Association of Farmers Markets. So if I could invite Elizabeth Quinn and Jon Bell up.

While you’re walking up, I’ll let you know you have ten minutes for the presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes to go so that you can conclude your thoughts. Then, after that, I’ll go to the committee for questions, if they have any. Welcome. The floor is yours.

E. Quinn: Thank you. Nice to meet some of you again. Hello.

This is Jon Bell, the president of our association, and I’m the executive director of the B.C. Association of Farmers Markets. We appreciate the opportunity for input into the provincial budget.

Our association represents over 125 farmers markets, and we’re a voice for more than 1,000 small-scale farmers and over 3,000 small-scale food processors across the province. The market members are non-profit societies with volunteer boards of directors. Our members follow the “Make it, bake it, grow it” mandate and provide British Columbians with the opportunity to connect directly with local farmers, small-scale food processors and artisans. This differs from other markets that may source their merchandise locally or from around the world.

Our association collaborates and communicates with a broad group of farmers, provincial ministries, agricultural stakeholders, municipalities and social services agencies. As you have seen in the media and, possibly, in your own communities — I know all of you have farmers markets in your communities — farmers markets continue to gain in popularity, and we are taking a prominent role in supporting local agriculture, providing a key asset for tourism across British Columbia as well as providing health and social benefits.

Farmers markets are strengthening local economies. They’re incubators for small businesses and, at the same time, offer fresh and healthy food to British Columbians. Between 2006 and 2012, the economic benefit of farmers markets grew 150 percent. We don’t have any recent numbers, but I’m sure it has grown even more. So from $69 million to $170 million. This growth is due to the passion and determination of community volunteers who lead farmers markets in communities of all sizes across B.C. Although the enthusiasm of committed community volunteers has reaped notable success, the domestic market for locally grown food is relying on a tenuous foundation.

[1435]

The majority of farmers markets operate on public or private land and at the whim of their municipality or landowner. Almost none of our member markets have permanent locations. I’ve heard “infrastructure” repeated quite a bit in the last month. We need infrastructure spending to help build permanent locations similar to Spirit Squares constructed for the 2010 Olympics. Provincial and municipal and farmers market society financial partnership agreements would provide the stability that is needed to ensure long-term sustainability of farmers markets and domestic markets for locally grown food.

On another note, we sincerely thank the provincial government for the continued support for the farmers market nutrition coupon program and would like to describe the impact this program is having across the province.

Who knows about the farmers market nutrition coupon program? A few of you. Okay, that’s good to know.

We’re the only province in Canada with this type of program, so we can feel proud that we…. The government has supported this initiative. It’s something that’s happening in the States, in most states, but we’re the only place in Canada.

This healthy eating initiative, supported by HealthyFamilies B.C., offers coupons to lower-income pregnant women, families and seniors for the purchase of fresh B.C. foods at farmers markets, such as fruits, vegetables and herbs, and protein in the form of meat, fish, dairy and nuts. So it’s a healthy eating initiative.

This year the farmers market nutrition coupon program is operating in 50 communities in B.C., from Hazelton to Fort St. John to Vancouver to Cranbrook — so many communities. To deliver the program, we partner with 79 community and social services agencies that offer nutrition and food skills programming. A really important element is the learning that takes place.

Over 900 farm families are also receiving the coupons and feeding their families through selling people food, and 75 lower-income British Columbians are directly benefiting from this program, including lots of children. Participants are provided with $15 week for 16 weeks a year, as well as resources and skills to support healthy eating choices.

This program increases access to fresh in-season produce for 3,500 lower-income households — that includes children — and is an investment in the long-term health of British Columbians.

Farmers markets are also important community gathering places. Who’s been to a farmers market?

Interjections.

E. Quinn: Okay — yeah. So you know how great they are for connecting with people — all your friends. You see people you haven’t seen for a while. We know that
[ Page 1962 ]
visits to the farmers markets for many participants, especially seniors, foster a sense of social connectedness, which is a key determinant of health.

We have many more communities, local partners and British Columbians who would benefit from this program. In fact, communities are stepping up to the plate and have contributed an additional $50,000 to support hundreds more families, seniors and pregnant women.

We’re finding that the longer this program exists, the more community organizations, Lions clubs…. Whole Foods is contributing $40,000. The longer it exists, the more people we partner with. In particular, Whole Foods has contributed $40,000 to fund more families in Vancouver for the 2015 and 2016 season.

This demand for the program is growing. We encourage the government of B.C. to continue to expand funding for this program.

This year, with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture’s buy-local funding, we launched a successful provincewide campaign. It was called Meet my Market. Over 70 farmers markets engaged in our four-week campaign that resulted in 75 television, radio, newspaper and blog media clippings, which is great, as well as vigorous social media engagement.

Additionally, because we’re a non-profit society — that’s a benefit — Global TV provided us with $20,000 worth of free public programs — PSAs. We are promoting shopping at markets and eating locally. Did anybody see the ad on Global TV? Did anybody remember?

Interjection.

E. Quinn: Yes. Thank you, John.

[1440]

Lots of people saw it, and it did drive traffic to the markets.

Our campaign raised the profile of all farmers markets in B.C., and we encourage the government to renew the funding for Buy Local campaigns. Now is the time to support local agriculture and to strengthen farmers markets. We currently have funding from Vancity Credit Union. They’ve been funding us for four years to offer a farmers market management certificate program. It’s only the second of its kind in Canada, after Nova Scotia.

We need additional support to offer training and professional development to our members in rural and remote communities to cover topics like business and strategic planning, marketing, fundraising, board governance. Collectively, all our objectives and programs are helping the B.C. government’s goals of expanding domestic markets.

Our recommendations.

Develop a provincial-municipal farmers market society financial partnership agreement to establish permanent locations for farmers markets, similar to Spirit Squares established during the 2010 Olympics.

Continue and expand funding the farmers market nutrition coupon program.

Offer core support to provide customized farmers market business development training to market organizers in rural and remote communities.

Core support for expanding marketing initiatives to meet the provincial goals.

Renew funding for Buy Local programs.

Develop a small grant program of under $5,000 for farmers markets in rural and remote communities of B.C. to access Buy Local funding. The grant ceiling is…. You have to have a minimum of $5,000, and most markets do not have $5,000 to match the Buy Local funding.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for that. When you asked the question of who’d been to a farmers market, I wasn’t sure…. With my tongue firmly pressed in my cheek, I’m not sure if it was a farmers market I walked into or a food truck festival. Nevertheless, there are a couple in my community, and I like to frequent them whenever I can.

Thank you very much for taking the time to present.

S. Chandra Herbert: I get the honour of ringing the bell at the West End farmers market every year. It’s great fun. I recently saw a farmers market in Nakusp — very different.

I wanted to ask…. You suggested we need to renew funding for the Buy Local program as well as, I know, continue and expand funding for the farmers market nutrition and coupon program. Do either of those have end dates as of yet? Is the funding set to expire at a certain time? Are we just waiting to find out if more funding will come for Buy Local? Where are we at?

E. Quinn: I know there’s another application deadline in January, but I don’t really know how long the funding will go for.

Then, with the nutrition coupon program, we have funding at today’s level until the end of 2017.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Like everyone here, I’ve…. My last market was Saturday. We’ll miss it till it comes back later in the spring.

Two quick questions. One is around the coupon program and whether you see…. Is there continued pressure from community organizations to take part? I just wondered about capacity, whether there are more groups wanting to take part than there are resources or the ability to share coupons in the community.

The second question. You mentioned looking at permanent spaces for markets — an interesting, creative idea. But I wondered as well: does your association hear pressure for people to find existing spaces, or are you also seeing pressure for people wanting to start markets and
[ Page 1963 ]
looking for support? I guess, again, looking at capacity around the province.

E. Quinn: I’ll answer the second question first. What we’re finding is that our existing members need more stability. They want to have permanent locations, but they don’t have the funds.

They need municipal help, and the municipalities always say: “Well, we need help from the province.” It sounds like a familiar conversation. We’re representing our members and hoping that at a provincial level, some conversation can start.

There are also more markets being set up by chambers of commerce. Municipalities are just wanting to set up markets. BIAs are setting up markets, and now they’re in competition with existing markets for farmers. So even though there’s a growing demand for more markets, now there are not enough small-scale farmers to go around, or farmers.

Did I answer that question? Okay.

[1445]

J. Bell: As one of those small-scale farmers, it’s really tough. We’re getting asked to do more than two markets a week. For us, we have limited staff, limited land availability and a limited product. It gets really hard to try and cover too many markets. So the actual number of small farmers in, close to, markets is a limiting factor for us.

E. Quinn: Yeah.

What was the first question?

C. James (Deputy Chair): The first question was related to the coupon program and whether you have more not-for-profit groups. Is there pressure for people to say: “We want to take part. We could use some coupons”? Are there resources there?

E. Quinn: Yes, absolutely. I think there is very much need. We’re working with community agencies to try to get other funding so that it’s not only government funding, so we’re not just relying on the government — but yes, because it’s such a terrific program. People go to the farmers markets, so they’re feeling so much more connected to their community. They’re feeling that there’s happiness as well as health.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I’ve got time for one more question. I’ll have to take the last two on notice. I have to go to Eric, please.

E. Foster: What’s been the feedback? Has there been a lot of involvement with the craft brewers, the craft distillers, being able to take part in the farmers markets?

E. Quinn: We have about 40, at least 40, farmers markets that have liquor at the farmers market. The craft breweries are able to sell at the market as well. It’s very, very popular — not with everyone. What’s happened is that government has just changed some of the legislation or the regulations and now it doesn’t have to be a farmers market. It can be expanded to other types of…. Flea markets, maybe. I’m not sure how the regulations will be….

E. Foster: Not flea markets but craft markets, the same as….

E. Quinn: Like artisan markets, you mean — craft or artisan markets?

E. Foster: Yes, artisan markets.

E. Quinn: Okay. They’ll be able to sell…. Like Saltspring Island. They’re run by a municipality, so they’ve expanded the regulations to allow them to be able to sell, which will be great. Now they’ll have even more people there at that market.

J. Bell: I must say that in the two years that we’ve been involved in the program — with the consultation, first of all, and the implementation, actually — it has worked very well for us. It has drawn in a lot of additional people, particularly the guys that like to go for a beer and try out craft beers. All of a sudden, we’re getting a different sort of demographic at some of the markets. Once there, they’re willing to come back. It’s not onerous.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you. We’re completely out of time. I’m going to have to take the last few questions quickly, on notice, so if you could take them away and then respond back before October 15.

Mike, please.

M. Morris: I’m in good shape. Carole asked the question I was going to ask.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Oh, that’s great.

G. Heyman: Just on the availability of produce in markets that you touched on. I noticed that at some of the markets, Sole Food cooperative — I think it’s a cooperative — which is using vacant urban land in Vancouver to grow…. Any information that you have on the potential of that that you could feed into the committee would be useful.

E. Quinn: Sure, okay. Thanks very much.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Wonderful. Thank you very much for taking the time to present. Keep up the great work. We appreciate it. Take care.

Next, I have Mike Martens — the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada.
[ Page 1964 ]

Mr. Martens, as you’re walking up, I’ll let you know that you have ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to give you a wave-down with a couple of minutes to go, and you can conclude your thoughts. Then I’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

M. Martens: Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee, thank you so much for taking the time to hear the public’s concerns. I know you’ve done yeoman’s work already and you’re coming to the end of your time, so I will be brief in my comments. Hopefully, something I mention to you in my verbal comments here will interest you in spending more time with our written report.

My name is Mike Martens. I’m the director of public affairs for the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada. We are a national association of building constructors — or contractors, as we call them. We believe that an inclusive, non-confrontational stance between labour and business owners is a critical element in being progressive in the construction industry in the 21st century. That is that we bring together the interests of both labour and business to meet important commercial goals.

Our members, over 100 across the country, represent over 25,000 skilled construction workers across Canada. They’re represented, primarily but not exclusively, by the trade union CLAC. Our member companies are responsible for 40 percent of the energy and natural resource construction and projects in Alberta and British Columbia, and they’re leaders in infrastructure.

[1450]

Every time you cross the Port Mann Bridge or take the South Fraser Perimeter Road and a number of other important infrastructure and energy and resource development projects, our members are likely partly, if not entirely, responsible for the construction of those projects.

Some of our members include Kiewit, Ledcor, JV Driver, Flatiron, PCL, etc. These are people who have a vested interest in building British Columbia, and we would like to share a few of our thoughts on some of the challenges that British Columbia will be facing in the near future.

Together with projects like Site C, LNG projects coming on line hopefully, near-term bridges, LRT SkyTrain expansion and even port expansion, British Columbia is going to be facing a large infrastructure crunch in terms of labour. We urge you, on two main points, to consider two main things.

Number 1, B.C. needs to remain competitive on an international scale, and secondly, we’d like to raise some issue regarding labour capacity and how, by making the labour context more flexible and mobile, we can increase British Columbia’s productivity and remain competitive on an international scale.

Let me just draw your attention to a few things about what we think British Columbia’s competitive edge might be about.

The first is something that you’re probably well aware of in terms of Site C and B.C. Hydro’s approach to take an open-managed-site approach on Site C. We applaud this. We think this is progressive. We think it embraces the principles of collaboration, corroboration, where multiple labour models can work together in harmony and collaboratively to a productive outcome on that site.

We hope and we’re optimistic that this model will also be adopted in the private sector in British Columbia. Also, we encourage the provincial government to take steps to multiply and increase the use of this model in other public infrastructure projects in the province.

Secondly, we would like to encourage the province to consider more policies that encourage something called “wall-to-wall” and “multi-skilling.” Wall-to-wall is the practice of having all skills on a jobsite bargain together. This is not something we would like to enforce. Individual unions should absolutely have the right and the opportunity to negotiate with the province and private owners of sites independently. But we would like to increase the opportunity, for those who work within a wall-to-wall environment — to have the opportunity to bid on projects and put their best foot forward as well.

Multi-skilling is the term we use that defines when a particular worker who has tickets in multiple trades should be able to work in all those trades. If you are an electrician and you also happen to have a plumbing ticket and you also happen to have a welding ticket, you shouldn’t be prevented from working in all three sectors at the same time.

In some work environments, that is the case. That is, if you are a member of a union that exclusively has bargained for a certain type of work, you will find it difficult to work outside the parameters of the union to which you belong.

It is not only CLAC, but there are other unions that are taking a multi-skilling approach. That is, they are encouraging workers to be multi-skilled, thereby increasing their productivity and ability to service the needs of their clients more flexibly and more productively.

Those are two of our high-level pieces regarding increasing British Columbia’s competitive advantage. A third piece — I won’t go into more detail about it, but it would be worth a long time — is that our members are actively engaged with aboriginal and First Nations and engaging them in their work projects, both as partners and as subcontractors.

Secondly, I’d like to briefly make a few comments on increasing British Columbia’s competitiveness by increasing productivity. I’ve talked about a few tactics. I’ve talked about wall-to-wall and multi-skilling and how those might happen. But I’d like to focus now on some labour mobility issues. Progressive Contractors Association is actively involved in provincial associations like the ITA, or the Industry Training Authority, and involved on subcommittees there, doing work, talking about how we can increase labour mobility.

[1455]

PCA member companies are fully committed to hiring British Columbians first. But as we look at any job or skilled labour requirement analysis of British Columbia over the next five to 20 years, we are going to have a significant deficit, especially in certain skilled areas — like boilermakers, for instance, highly skilled people who take years of training.

We might have a lot of workers in British Columbia. They might not, however, have the skills required for the jobs that are going to be at hand — like LNG, for instance. Despite the fact that all of us are committed to hiring British Columbians first, in order to get the jobs done, in order to secure those bids, we collectively are going to need to enable the companies who are building these projects to pull workers in from elsewhere. We would start by saying from next door.

Let’s make sure we can increase provisions and reduce restrictions on pulling workers over from Alberta, especially if they happen to be British Columbians working in Alberta and they have a ticket there. Let us not, for instance, make a trade that’s compulsory, and if we do make it compulsory, not make it so that it has different requirements than in Alberta. Chances are if it works fine for Alberta, it will work fine in British Columbia. I’m sure there are committees and bureaucrats who can do that.

Our emphasis would be…. The evidence shows that the model that British Columbia has taken without regulating and without overdoing the requirement of compulsory trades has worked very well here, has been very productive and has the highest of safety levels.

We urge you, committee members and Mr. Chair, that policies such as compulsory trades would not be to the benefit of British Columbians and to the government, especially as they move forward with larger projects.

I now open myself up to questions.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay, thank you very much.

J. Yap: Thanks for your presentation. On your last comments regarding skilled labour, with the reports of a recent slowdown in Alberta’s economy, are you starting to see meaningful numbers of skilled workers, including native British Columbians who moved over to Alberta and others who may…? The timing may be appropriate for us to offer them opportunities here.

M. Martens: I think it’s incredibly important for all of us to not overestimate the number of people who will come to British Columbia to work from Alberta. Yes, there’s a downturn. Yes, you’re talking about the fact that tens of thousands of workers have been let go. The vast majority of those people who have been let go, the primary ones, are first those who worked out of province.

That’s not always the case. If you have a unique skill and you’re from Newfoundland, let’s say, you’re probably not laid off. But of those who could be, they generally don’t lay off the people who live in Alberta.

Now, there is a political reason for that, in that these are Alberta companies, it is Alberta industry, and there’s a political incentive. But there’s also a practical one, in that if you’re in Alberta, you live closer. You’re less expensive to bring to the projects that work there. Therefore, the ones who are further away are let go first. The actual downturn of people who live in Alberta who have been let go is not very high at all. The layoffs are mostly out of province.

Secondly, however, we’re seeing a strong increase in what’s called maintenance. This could be anywhere from shutdown turnarounds to just standard and ongoing maintenance of these projects. It’s skyrocketing. They’re basically saying: “If we’re not going to do new projects, we’re going to make sure our existing ones are up to date, they’re refurbished, and all that.” They’re going to spend their money on that. So we’re actually seeing an employment jump.

Now, BuildForce, which is the nation’s evaluator…. It’s funded primarily through the government of Canada but also funded through partners like PCA and building trades unions and other sectors. I just spoke to them earlier this week, and their numbers, which are coming out in November, are going to be significantly revised. Their one comment to me was: “Don’t expect a lot of Albertans to be flooding into British Columbia.” The general employment levels are not going to drop off as much as we thought, especially in skilled labour.

That’s a critical thing here. You generally think of construction…. It’s a huge thing. There’s residential, which is one sector, and then there’s industrial. Even in industrial, you have the maintenance versus construction sectors. It’s a little more complicated than we normally assume.

In this sector, we’re going to need to build Site C, LNG plants, the Port Mann expansion and the George Massey Tunnel replacement project — the higher-skill-level stuff. We’re going to need all hands on deck to get that done.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you, Mr. Martens, for taking the time to present to the committee. Appreciate it. Have a good day.

M. Martens: Thank you for your time.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Next we have David Hutniak of LandlordBC.

[1500]

Mr. Hutniak, good to see you again. Ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes to go so that you can conclude your thoughts. Then I can go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

D. Hutniak: Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I will actually try and keep it under ten minutes, to be honest with you. I know you’ve had a busy day.
[ Page 1966 ]

S. Hamilton (Chair): The time is yours.

D. Hutniak: Great. Thank you. My name is David Hutniak. I’m the CEO of LandlordBC. We’re the industry association that represents owners and managers of rental housing in the province of British Columbia.

It’s my pleasure to speak with you this afternoon. I’m seeking support from the B.C. government and this committee to create and operate a mandatory landlord registry in the province, with the specific goal of enhancing the professionalism and accountability of landlords across B.C. for the benefit of landlords and tenants.

By way of a little bit of background in regard to LandlordBC, we are an amalgamation of three associations, with a 50-plus-year track record for education and support of the rental housing industry, so that we can continue to deliver safe, secure and sustainable rental housing to British Columbians. The majority of our landlords in B.C. are small business owners managing 30 rental units or less. In fact, only 2 percent of our 3,300 members are larger commercial landlords managing 500 rental units or more.

Currently the rental housing industry provides homes for approximately 550,000 people in British Columbia, representing 30 percent of all households. This number is growing every year as the cost to buy one’s own home becomes increasingly difficult; as we continue to see steady growth in the number of new Canadians who want to live in this great province; and as a result of demographic changes where retirees are increasingly electing to sell their homes and rent, versus buy, apartments and condos, often living in downtown locations.

In terms of economic impact, the B.C. rental housing industry is one of the province’s largest industries, generating $10.6 billion of annual economic activity — which is actually larger than forestry and mining combined, I should add — and a total of $12.25 billion of economic activity across Canada. We employ in the order of 83,000 British Columbians.

There are two significant issues facing landlords and tenants in B.C.: aging rental stock and a severe shortage of supply. While not here to discuss these two challenging issues today, LandlordBC continues to encourage all levels of government to work with our industry to address these challenges.

In particular, we call on the federal government and all federal parties currently seeking election to bring back the progressive tax policies of the past that helped our industry build in excess of 100,000 units of rental housing per year for several years in a row across this country. LandlordBC is currently collaborating with like-minded stakeholders through the B.C. Rental Housing Coalition to get this message out to all federal election candidates.

Back to the issue that I’m here to speak to you about. As I mentioned, I’m here to talk to you about the landlord registry, to help us enhance the professionalism and accountability of landlords across B.C. for the benefit of both landlords and tenants.

Currently a disproportionate number of landlords in B.C. do not avail themselves of any organized education in regard to the Residential Tenancy Act. As I mentioned, we have 3,300 members. We estimate there are probably in the order of 50,000 landlords across the province, so you can see the challenge there.

In addition, they are not employing best practices in terms of proper forms, the procedures for screening and affecting tenancies, and consequently are exposing themselves and their tenants to undue personal risk and financial liability.

LandlordBC is proposing to establishing a landlord registry in British Columbia. Now, this is not a licensing model — I think that’s a really important distinction to make here — but rather the first registry of its kind in Canada and North America. The objective of the proposed landlord registry is to create a central provincial registry of all landlords in British Columbia, to create the first comprehensive database education platform for the rental housing industry in B.C. and to be operated and managed by LandlordBC.

The goal of the proposed registry is to enhance the professionalism and accountability of landlords across British Columbia, as I’ve mentioned before.

The proposed landlord registry will, in its initial phase, do three things. First, it’ll collect and maintain up-to-date and accurate information on landlords and their properties across the province, something that is woefully lacking today.

[1505]

The landlord registry will be open to all landlords, but initially, we will be targeting landlords with three or more rental units in their portfolio. Licensed rental housing property managers are eligible to participate but are not a target audience for the registry — at least not initially.

Two, the proposed registry will require all landlords
[ Page 1967 ]
to complete mandatory minimum — we call it landlord 101 — legislative education with the opportunity for more expansive continuing education via an on-line platform. Landlords will be tested for their knowledge and comprehension and, upon successful completion, will receive a competency certificate as participating members of the landlord registry.

Education is the key to significantly reducing the number of landlord-tenant disputes and to reducing the costs associated with disputes for all stakeholders. That includes landlords, tenants and the provincial government. There are huge costs associated with this. Tenants will be able to rent with increased confidence because they will be able to access the landlord registry website, enter the name of their landlord and, in seconds, confirm that the landlord is registered and that they have secured a competency certificate.

Three, the proposed registry will require all landlords to use a standardized set of industry forms — including tenant application, tenancy agreement and rental condition inspection — developed by LandlordBC to meet all RTB, the residential tenancy branch, requirements.

Subsequent phases that we contemplate. Phase 2 would include education for tenants through the creation of a separate on-line platform for tenants. I’ll give you some dates here that we’re contemplating for the second and third phases. But this will likely be done in association with tenant advocacy groups. In fact, we have been speaking with TRAC, who I’m sure many of you are familiar with. They’re actually working on a bit of a tenant education platform right now, which we’re privy to. This second phase actually could be ramped up sooner if we move forward.

The final phase is providing tenants with a customer satisfaction program, to be based on a scoring system for tenants to rate landlords. To be developed by LandlordBC, the customer satisfaction component of the registry is intended to provide landlords with incentive to maintain standards, enhance rental service to tenants, mitigate landlord-tenant disputes and reduce the costs associated with disputes.

These are, essentially, the three phases. The first three items that I mentioned to you would be in phase 1; then phase 2, integrating tenant education; and then phase 3, this separate customer satisfaction platform, which is a little more involved process. We propose to launch the registry by March 1, 2016, and phase 2, which is the tenant piece, by October 2016, but it could be ramped up. Phase 3 wouldn’t be until March of 2017.

What are the benefits of the landlord registry? Well, the registry will, first of all, support the B.C. government’s efforts to protect the rights of consumers — we think this is really important; create the first comprehensive landlord rental housing database in B.C.; and provide an education platform to landlords and tenants about each party’s responsibilities in accordance with the act, with the goal of enhancing the standard of rental housing in B.C. and mitigating the number of landlord-tenant disputes.

Provide an efficient means of distribution to disseminate information and education to landlords and tenants regarding updates on the duties and responsibilities of landlords and tenants in B.C.

Finally, provide tenants with easy access to information about landlords and their properties and provide landlords with a way to inform tenants that they offer safe, secure rental housing. From a tenant’s perspective, it’s good information. From the landlord’s perspective, frankly, it’s a great marketing tool.

The landlord registry requires funding. We’re a non-profit association, and we’re seeking some financial support to advance this. While we propose this to be a self-sustaining program at the end of the day — we are going to have a registration fee of about $25, which is good for three years, just so that there’s a little bit of skin in the game and to offset some of the ongoing costs — we are, as I said, a non-profit society with limited means to raise capital.

LandlordBC is respectfully requesting the B.C. government and this committee to support this important initiative to enhance the accountability of the rental housing industry in B.C. by providing start-up funding, expected to cost about $300,000.

[1510]

LandlordBC respectfully recommends that the B.C. government and this committee seriously consider this funding request and establish the landlord registry in B.C. We recognize that the registry will require some adjustment, perhaps, from landlords. It’s something that will be a little foreign, but we feel, as an industry leader, that this is really important. We’re going to make a serious attempt at professionalizing the industry. It is our strong commitment that the registry will be an important part of that goal.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. Everybody thinks they’ll never use their ten minutes. They use them, and then some.

D. Hutniak: Did I really?

S. Hamilton (Chair): Oh, yeah. That’s okay.

Spencer, I’ll go to you first, please.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, thank you, thank you for this idea. It’s something I hear from constituents often, wanting to know if their landlord will be a good one. And they don’t always know. Numbered companies, etc. — it’s hard to tell sometimes. So I think this is an exciting idea.

Now, you mentioned that you wouldn’t have to be part of this, necessarily, or is this…?

D. Hutniak: Well, it’s not licensing. That’s what I said.

S. Chandra Herbert: So it’s not licensing.

D. Hutniak: No, I think you need to walk before you run. We’re describing it as mandatory because that’s how we would like to communicate it to the industry, but I think that would be a great initial step.

Our goal is…. And we’re not naive here. This is not necessarily going to be an easy process. Like I said, we don’t really know how many landlords are out there, and plus, we’re sort of carving out a number of them — less than three units. But the reality is…. Let’s say it is 50,000. If we roll something like this out over a five-year period and we were able to engage 25,000 of them, can you imagine what a change that would make?

S. Chandra Herbert: Yeah. This is great. The follow-up to that was just to ask….
[ Page 1968 ]

Currently, we have something called administrative penalties which can be used, and the whole idea was that if there was a bad landlord or a fraudulent tenant — somebody committing fraud — you could use them to penalize that person. I know they’ve only been used once. Any thoughts from your association on how they could be used?

D. Hutniak: You know, there’s a two-edged sword there, I guess. And — I have to be honest with you — then I hear some landlords saying: “Well, there are deadbeat tenants, and we should have a deadbeat tenant list, and there should be penalties against tenants.” You know, the way we’re looking at it….

We know that education solves a whole lot of problems. And if landlords and, frankly, tenants know the legislation, their rights, their respective responsibilities, it has a huge impact. Certainly, our members have access to great support and educational tools that enable them to run their businesses far more effectively than folks who just simply are not engaged in any sort of education around this business, which is actually one of the big problems. They don’t understand that it’s a business.

I wouldn’t want to go down that path, to be honest with you.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We have a couple of minutes.

S. Gibson: It sounds like a laudable initiative to me.

Two quick questions. At what point will you seek some counsel or some advice from tenants groups? I get it that there’s always a tension between landlords and tenants, from time to time.

My second question is…. When I taught university students, they would see a thing called RateMyProfessors. Students could go on a….

D. Ashton: How did you do?

S. Gibson: Yeah, I passed.

D. Ashton: Oh. Just checking.

S. Gibson: Thanks, Dan, for encouraging me.

They’d rate the professors. You can go on, and then you can compare one professor with another. Is that the kind of mechanism you’re looking at, where people can evaluate on line so that there’s some kind of peer evaluation process?

My first question, of course, is: at what point do you integrate the tenants groups into this ongoing process?

D. Hutniak: Tenant groups. Well, TRAC, in particular, which is, obviously, very much the de facto representative for tenants in the province…. We actually met on this again last Thursday. I was making them aware of the fact that I was doing this presentation. We actually work very closely together and have a steadily improving and evolving relationship, so they’re very much supportive of this.

Phase 3 would be, basically, rate the landlord, but it would not be done anonymously. You see, the model is one where it would be factual issues identified by the tenant on exit from the relationship. The landlord would have an opportunity to rectify that situation before a bad rating went up on the website. But it would not be anonymous. I don’t mean to slander Yelp necessarily, but Yelp has had some challenges around that, so we’re looking at something much more constructive.

[1515]

S. Hamilton (Chair): Dan, can we take your question on notice, if you don’t mind, please?

D. Ashton: That’s fine. I’ll just leave it. It was partially answered. Thank you.

D. Hutniak: Thank you very much. Have a great day.

S. Hamilton (Chair): You too. Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time.

Next we have the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre — Lobat Sadrehashemi.

Welcome. You’ve sat here long enough that you’ve probably already heard me say it’s ten minutes for the presentation. Then I’ll get your attention with a couple minutes to go, and we’ll conclude and go for questions. The floor is yours.

L. Sadrehashemi: Good afternoon. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I’m here today representing the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre. I work as a lawyer there. We are a non-profit public interest law office. We work on a number of different issues.

The central theme running through the work that we do is the belief that it should not only be the rich and the powerful who our courts, tribunals and administrative bodies hear from. Our task is to provide representation to groups that are not able to represent themselves and ensure that their views are taken into account in decisions that implicate their rights and well-being. Primarily, we work on issues affecting low-income people in B.C.

There are a number of different issues that I could speak to you about today, but I wanted to use my limited time to speak to you about one, which is access to welfare and service delivery problems at the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation. I chose to speak about this because, in our view, this issue is critical. What I want to talk about is the most vulnerable in our society’s access to basic benefits.

Our welfare system is predicated on the belief that if people have no other means, they will be able to access
[ Page 1969 ]
some level of government assistance for themselves and their children. The legislation itself states that it’s an assistance of the last resort.

What I want to talk about are the current failures in ensuring that the most vulnerable can access this basic benefit. We don’t allege that the welfare ministry has done this by creating a new law or explicitly excluding a group of people. Instead, this is happening because of system design. It’s happening because the way the welfare system is designed, in the shifts towards a call centre and an Internet-based model, makes it extremely difficult and sometimes impossible for people to obtain vital supports that they and their children need.

As I say, over the last few years, what we’ve seen increasingly is a shift to services delivered by phone and on line. This isn’t just a shift that happens, of course, at the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation. We’re seeing that across the board, in all sorts of different services. What we’ve heard across the province is that for welfare users, some of the most vulnerable people in our province, that don’t have access to reliable phone service or Internet service…. To make this shift without considering the implications for their access is incredibly dangerous.

When we think about the administration of income assistance services, it’s critical that we consider who is on welfare. What are their circ*mstances? So many don’t have a phone. If they do have a phone, they rely on pay-as-you-go phones that run out of minutes. Most don’t have a computer. If they do have a computer, they may not have access to reliable Internet service.

These are things that we have to pay attention to when we’re designing a welfare system. Basically, the three issues that we want to think about in terms of the service delivery design are the phone, the on-line services and the face-to-face services.

In terms of phone, what we’ve heard is that the shift is now to this call centre model, so it’s a centralized phone line. People are being referred to the phones. When they go into the office, they’re told: “Call the phone.” But the phone line has incredibly long wait times. At the end of last year, the average time was around 30 minutes. Now we hear that it’s often longer than that. People also get disconnected. These are people that may be using a phone at a community agency. They may be using their cell phone that’s running out of minutes, so that is a huge barrier.

On top of that, we’ve heard that once they get onto the phone, there are limits on the time on the phone call. The ministry employees are feeling pressure because of the backlog and because of the huge wait times, so they have to end the phone call.

[1520]

In fact, in our work, we’ve heard from the BCGEU, which is the union representing ministry workers. They did an excellent report called the Choose Children report, and they talked to front-line workers. In that report, they identify that workers are often told that they have to get off the phone. They have signals that they have to get off the phone after ten minutes. Sometimes when there’s a huge backlog, they have to get off the phone after two minutes.

Again, once they’ve waited, they can’t get their issue across. The phone tree is also confusing for people, and often people don’t feel comfortable talking about their issues over the phone.

In terms of on line, the problem is that now if you want to make an application for welfare, you need to do it on line and there’s no dedicated ministry service for assisting you with the application. If you go and look at the on-line application — and I encourage you to — it’s 90 screens to get through. That’s the province’s application to apply for welfare, and it’s incredibly confusing. There is no dedicated service, and it’s only provided in English.

What we’re hearing is that people who work in libraries are helping people fill in these forms. People are being referred to the security guard at the office to put in these forms. I don’t think it’s acceptable. This is the first entry point to getting assistance.

Lastly, in terms of face to face, we know that offices have been shut down across the province. There are 14 offices that have been shut down since 2005. Then there have been — since 2011 and then especially in 2014 — 11 offices across the province that reduced their hours to only being open three hours a day. That also makes it incredibly difficult for people to try and access.

If they manage to get in, there are often lineups, especially in the north and the Interior. We’ve heard, from people having to arrange to get a bus, that the bus schedule doesn’t match the time that the welfare office is open. So they’re unable to actually access services.

Our organization filed a complaint to the Ombudsperson on behalf of nine organizations across the province in May 2015. We heard back at the end of June. This was when Kim Carter was Ombudsperson. She denied the request to do a systemic review, saying that their office did not have the resources to do a systemic review and that she encouraged individuals to continue to file complaints.

We’re obviously very disappointed with that. We’re here to ask you, as legislators, to act, because we think that there need to be more resources in ensuring that those who are most in need can get the government assistance that they’re legally entitled to. We hope that the recommendation can be made that the government address this gap between service delivery design and access.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. You still had a little bit of time left, but I will go to the committee with questions.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you for the presentation and also thank you for the FOI looking into what the call wait times are. Certainly, in my constituency, a number
[ Page 1970 ]
of people end up coming to my office because they don’t know how to use the computers and they don’t have a phone. We see that often.

Certainly, the local service providers come to us and say: “Wait a second, we’re now becoming social workers, yet we’re having to fundraise through charity to pay what used to be a government expense — a requirement that we would look after each other.” It certainly is something that resonates pretty strongly with me.

In terms of where your priority would be, would you suggest…? Some have said…. Well, the phone line: “We just need more money to go to the call centre so wait times are lower.” Others have said we need to reopen some offices or some other sort of model to help those who can’t use computers or don’t have the skills, or where language is a difficulty, as it — I don’t know how often — certainly can be, in my experience.

What would be the priorities, in terms of making the biggest difference?

L. Sadrehashemi: That’s a good question. We think that definitely there needs to be more staff so that the wait times aren’t as long on the phone. But that can’t be a complete answer, because people are needing face-to-face services. The phone line doesn’t address a lot of…. A lot of people just do not feel comfortable accessing through the phone. And people need assistance in completing the form. It shouldn’t just be on line.

S. Chandra Herbert: Could you give an example of why somebody might not feel…? Just anecdotal.

L. Sadrehashemi: Yeah, sure. We did a lot of work with the Kettle Friendship Society. They work with people who have mental health issues.

[1525]

They relayed…. We have an affidavit from one of their advocates talking about how many people who have mental health issues don’t feel comfortable sharing their information over the phone. They also have difficulty navigating just the phone tree.

S. Chandra Herbert: If you could provide that report just as an addendum to yours, that would be great.

S. Hamilton (Chair): A reminder — by October 15, okay? Thank you. That’s the deadline for submissions.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your submission. Unfortunately, sort of having to choose which of the ones you want to go to is like: do you want to save your right hand, or do you want to save your left hand? The system is so fundamentally broken that if we are not enabling people who use this as a last resort to be able to access it, there is a serious fault with the system. It needs fixing, and it’s not any one part of it.

My question. You’ve obviously got contacts with advocacy centres around the province, and networks. Talking to advocates, do you have any statistics on those people who have just given up? The advocates are saying: “Look, we tried. We couldn’t help.” They’ve just given up. I know it’s sort of, again…. The ones who have fallen through the gap are the ones we are least likely to know about, but these are also the ones who really need this.

L. Sadrehashemi: I don’t have statistics on that. I know that in…. I can’t remember the year, but the CCPA did have some kind of stats that they had gotten from surveys with homeless shelters. But I don’t have recent data on that.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Any further questions?

S. Gibson: You will know that when you even call a private company today, you have to go through a myriad of…. It drives us all crazy, but we know why they do that. It’s because of economies of scale. I think we want to provide, as government, the highest standard of service to the most needy people. I think we are looking for ideas on how to provide the same level of service, using technology within reason, and still deliver the kind of service that’s responsive and caring for the most disadvantaged people in our society. I think that’s the tough part about this paradigm and your concerns.

I just went through the various screens right now, pretending that I was somebody looking. I acknowledge that it’s a bit of a challenge. On the other hand, how do we do this in a way that is efficient and, at the same time, provides that service? I don’t have that answer. I know you’re making some suggestions.

L. Sadrehashemi: We don’t have an issue with increased options. If you had increased options of having more on line or having the call centre…. The problem is that we know that the people who are accessing welfare services — there is a large group that is unable to access the phone the way it’s set up, and the Internet. It just doesn’t work for that population.

It’s not the same as…. For example, you hear people say that there is a wait on hold with Air Canada for 30 minutes. It doesn’t sound as dire that way, because you hear about, often, wait times in call centres. But here we’re talking about people’s access to basic benefits and people who don’t have access to reliable phone service and Internet.

G. Heyman: Just very briefly, my jaw dropped when you said 90 screens. That’s seven or eight times or more the number of questions that somebody might need to fill out to borrow several hundred thousand dollars. Would you characterize that as a function of redundancy, intrusion or an attempt to discourage — or possibly all three?
[ Page 1971 ]

L. Sadrehashemi: I don’t know what was in mind — the discussions that resulted in a form that way. I know that it is incredibly difficult for people to be able to complete it.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much, Ms. Sadrehashemi, for taking the time to present, and thank you for the work that you do in the interests of the people you represent. Take care.

I am now going to relinquish the chair to our Deputy Chair for the remainder of the afternoon.

Thank you, Carole.

[1530]

[C. James in the chair.]

C. James (Deputy Chair): We have the Canadian Bar Association — Jennifer Chow.

Come on up. Hi. Welcome. While you’re getting comfortable, you’ve probably heard already — I know you were sitting here — 15 minutes. Ten minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions, and I’ll just give you the signal when you’re on to two minutes. So welcome.

J. Chow: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Madame Chair and committee members. My name is Jennifer Chow. I am the president of the B.C branch of the Canadian Bar Association. I am honoured to be here appearing before you today, and thank you for allowing me this opportunity.

The B.C. branch is the voice of approximately 7,000 B.C. lawyers. We speak out on access to justice and the rule of law. We advocate by intervening in significant court cases and by making submissions to the government on proposed legislative reform and issues affecting the legal profession.

We are a national not-for-profit society collectively representing approximately 39,000 lawyers across Canada. Our B.C. membership is diverse. We represent large, medium and small law firms in urban and rural areas. We also represent 2,000-plus sole practitioners in B.C. Our members provide legal services to your constituents.

Each year, our branch makes substantial submissions to the B.C. government. In the past year, we have actively participated in more than two dozen consultations on various law reform initiatives, most recently on the new Franchises Act, introduced over a week ago, which recently passed second reading. Our Agenda for Justice policy submissions outlined a number of low- or no-cost proposals for the government to enact. To date, there’s been considerable progress in implementing our recommendations.

In recent years, we’ve continued to raise concerns to this committee about the urgency in funding legal aid. We applaud the B.C. government’s commitment last year to increase funding to the Legal Services Society in the amount of $6 million over three years. You will not be surprised to hear, however, that we continue to press for more funding towards the justice system.

The justice system is underfunded. That issue remains a high priority for the Canadian Bar Association. Our commitment to that issue is unwavering. We appreciate the B.C. government’s commitment to the five pilot projects run by the Legal Services Society, including expanded family and criminal duty counsel programs in Victoria and the Lower Mainland, and a Parents Legal Centre in Vancouver to deal with child protection cases.

We ask that the government commit to establishing and funding similar pilot projects in rural and remote B.C. communities. We applaud the three justice access centres in Nanaimo, Victoria and Vancouver. These successes in providing client-centred legal services in family and civil matters signal an opportunity to establish more justice access centres in areas like East Kootenay and Prince Rupert. We ask that the government commit to establishing and funding justice access centres in rural and remote B.C. areas.

Rural communities are facing a shortage of lawyers. That adversely affects access to justice and the local economy. On September 25, Premier Clark announced an investment of up to $75 million to help reinvigorate the economies of rural communities. We support that commitment.

Many of our young lawyers would work in rural communities and contribute to those economies if they did not have high overhead in the form of student loans. In recent years, with the ailing economy, young lawyers have also faced difficulties in obtaining articling positions in B.C.

Increasingly, I have heard from our young lawyers that they question their current and future place in the legal profession and the justice system. We recognize the need for young lawyer support. A few years ago, the Canadian Bar Association created the rural education and access to lawyers program, otherwise known as REAL, to help place law students in summer positions in rural and remote B.C. communities.

[1535]

This year, as president of the B.C. branch, one of my goals is to examine and propose to the government a student loan forgiveness program to assist our young lawyers who wish to work in B.C.’s remote communities. Our young people are our future. Young lawyers are graduating with debilitating debt. Their prospects for employment can seem dismal.

In March of this year, the B.C. government announced that it will expand the student loan forgiveness program beyond the medical profession and the civil service to include more occupations. We say one of those occupations should be young lawyers who choose to work in remote areas of B.C. This government should recognize the economic realities faced by its young lawyers.
[ Page 1972 ]

We expect to make a formal submission to the B.C. government next year on student loan forgiveness. Our executive committee recently created a young lawyers advisory task force to study and make recommendations on this important issue. Forgiveness of student loans for young lawyers who work in remote B.C. communities aligns with the B.C. government’s goals of reinvigorating rural B.C. communities, ensuring regional access to justice and promoting the B.C. economy.

As president, I hope to demonstrate leadership and influence on this and other issues by proposing solutions to government in a collaborative way. The province has already demonstrated that it is up to the task by its leadership.

In closing, I hope that with your support, the government commits to exploring these issues with us and commits to action.

Once again, thank you for your time. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Great. Thank you very much, Jennifer.

D. Ashton: Thank you for the presentation. Greatly appreciated.

Maybe more of a statement than a question. Earlier on, we had the notaries come. I know that there has been some discussion between the bar association and the notaries. I just hope it continues in a fair and equitable situation, where it can be discussed openly and kind of get a saw-off. Both of you are incredibly important in communities. I would like to see the conversations carried on. And I’m speaking personally, not for the committee.

J. Chow: I can advise that the Canadian Bar Association is involved in a working group that is studying the qualifications and some of the issues. That is hosted by the Law Society, and we continue to contribute to that conversation and to work with the Law Society on the issues.

We do have concerns, and we are raising them through that committee.

D. Ashton: We understand. I’m just looking for some form of a fair balance of conversation. I think that’s important.

M. Morris: I’ve got a few friends who are criminal trial lawyers. They’re all very grey and old and bent and withered.

I’m just wondering. I see a lot of…. Not a lot, but I’ve seen a fair number of young lawyers come into the central Interior and northern B.C. A lot of them are going into wills and estates and that type of law — administrative law, perhaps family law. But very few are getting into criminal law. I’m just wondering whether you see a deficit in this right across the province. Is it prevalent right across the province? Is it an issue that we should be concerned about?

J. Chow: It is an issue that you should be concerned about. I understand, for example, that in some northern regions there is a deficiency in criminal lawyers and that people have to actually drive in from a different city and that there is a shortage of lawyers. I think that’s partly because many people in the criminal system rely on the legal aid tariff, and with the amounts of the tariff, etc., there are some issues for the young lawyers who deal with that.

Hopefully, we will examine that issue this year with the young lawyers advisory task force. That is an issue, and it’s partly related to the Legal Services tariff.

M. Morris: I’d like to see whatever the outcome of that inquiry is with the young lawyers. I’d like to see the outcome of that.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your presentation.

I have, as well, two questions. One is…. You thank the commitment for $6 million over three years for legal aid but, obviously, need more funding towards the justice system. Would that just be to legal aid? Would that be to legal aid for criminal and family law? Or is it, generally, we just need more money in the justice system to make sure that it works properly and people have access to justice? That’s my first question.

My second question is on the loan forgiveness program for young lawyers coming to rural and remote communities. Representing a rural riding, I think it would be very good to be able to have that. I’m just wondering what sort of level of debt the young lawyers have.

We always look at it as sort of a quieter…. It’s a middle-class profession. People are going to make a lot of money. So what sort of debt do they get into to enter the profession?

[1540]

J. Chow: Thank you for the questions. In terms of the first question, we are looking for an increase to funding specifically in regard to the tariff. The tariff has remained quite low, at historical lows for the last few years. But we also support general funds towards the justice system as a whole, which based our comments in my speech earlier.

Certainly, we continue to be concerned with the legal aid tariff and the people that are able to access the tariff. We think that more money should go into allowing lawyers to provide those services at a higher rate and allow the eligibility requirements perhaps to be more accessible generally.

C. Trevena: Can a do a quick follow-up on that one? Are you just seeing lawyers basically backing out and say-
[ Page 1973 ]
ing they can’t afford to do legal aid? Is that the issue? If that is the case, what is the tariff now, and what would you like to see it go to?

J. Chow: Well, what I understand with the tariff is that the rates are not as high as they used to be, and I don’t have the number handy at the moment. I also understand that the criteria for eligibility was narrowed as well. It’s partly because of the funding crunch, which impacted on the legal aid tariff system.

That is something that can be examined, and we are participating in a variety of different justice-related committees and summits. That is something we will continue to press on and work collaboratively and put forward that message at those committees as well. Certainly, we would appreciate a review of the actual figures and numbers that go into the tariff system.

In terms of the student loan forgiveness, my understanding, for example, is that TRU, the Thompson Rivers University, has some of the highest tuition rates in this province. For example, to go through first-year law or one of the years in law, I understand it’s about $15,000 a year in tuition. If I’m correct, it’s about $10,000 for UVic and about $8,000 to $10,000 for UBC per year. That’s just the tuition, and that doesn’t include living expenses or food or books etc.

I’m not just talking about young lawyers from British Columbia universities. There are higher tuitions across Canada, and we do have young lawyers coming into this province from other universities as well. In terms of tuition, it’s possible, when you count undergrad as well as law school, that young lawyers could have debts of up to $100,000 for school.

On that note, we’ll also be looking at those issues. My understanding — for example, from the provincial government in Newfoundland and Labrador — is that recently they committed to converting all their student loans to non-repayable grants. That’s certainly one of the items that we would like to explore for young lawyers in British Columbia so that we can get our young lawyers working.

Certainly, with high student-loan debts, some of our young lawyers want to go and gain that experience up north. They know they can get a well-rounded work exposure and work experience, but they’re worried about paying down their debt. Some of them have young families. Some of them have other commitments. We just think that if we can reduce some of that overhead, we could also, through young lawyers, rejuvenate and reinvigorate rural economies as well.

C. James (Deputy Chair): One question left, Jennifer.

J. Yap: Good segue way to my question. I’ve heard it said in the past that quite a high percentage of trained lawyers don’t end up practising law. I don’t know if there’s any hard data on that. But especially with the commitment required to get trained and earn a law degree, it surprised me when I heard that.

Do you have any numbers on that, and is that concern? Where is that trend right now?

J. Chow: If I understand your question, I’ll answer it this way. For many years, students who went into law school were told by the law school that you’re not guaranteed jobs as lawyers. You come for the broad education. It’s sort of like when you get your bachelor of arts. That’s always been the message from the schools.

[1545]

There is no guarantee that you’re ever going to ever going to necessarily practise as a young lawyer. But most lawyers, after they finish law school, want to at least give it a try, so they try to find articling positions, of which we are facing a shortage as well. Then they try, and they get called to the bar, and there just simply haven’t been enough jobs over the past several years.

There is hard data. I don’t have them with me today, but we certainly will be exploring that issue and, hopefully, presenting the government with that data. It’s good that I’m going to make a note of that for our report, but I do want to talk a little bit about that. For example, you….

C. James (Deputy Chair): You’ve got about half a minute, Jennifer.

J. Chow: Okay. Hopefully, my last comments. I attend benchers meetings at the Law Society, and it’s been brought to their attention that UVic students, for example, who are needing articling positions in order to practise law have been offering to work at law firms for free, and in some instances, they have offered to pay law firms to take them on, because without an articling position, you can’t practise law.

Young lawyers are trying to find a way to get that practice certificate. I’d like to help them out, hopefully, on behalf of the bar.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Jennifer, and thank you for your presentation. If there’s any information you want to provide to the committee immediately, you can do that by the 15th of October, and it will be included in your report. Thank you so much for your presentation. And just on a personal note, thank you for all your work on the Franchise Act. It was hugely helpful.

Next, we have the B.C. Agriculture Council — Stan Vander Waal and Reg Ens.

You’ve heard the blurb: 15 minutes — ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions. I’ll give you the high sign when it’s getting close to two minutes. Welcome.
[ Page 1974 ]

S. Vander Waal: Well, thank you on behalf of the B.C. Ag Council — Reg and Stan, myself. We really do appreciate the opportunity to present on behalf of the Ag Council.

First of all, BCAC, as we refer to the Ag Council, is a non-profit council of 28 farm organizations representing 21,000 farm families who employ over 23,000 farm and ranch employees working directly in primary agriculture.

Our board of directors are commodity representatives comprised of farmers and ranchers who work together to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability of agriculture for current and future generations.

As chair of the council, I also come from a long line of agriculture. I grew up in the Midwest U.S., where they grow corn and soybeans and milk a few dairy cows. I was always an active participant on the farm. In ’76, my parents moved to Canada, into Chilliwack. My father chose to go back to his roots. There we began growing flowers.

In 1988, my wife and I started Rainbow Greenhouses, which, from humble beginnings, is now a high-tech operation using the best sustainable agriculture practices and employing over 300 employees in three facilities.

This same energy and commitment of B.C. farmers and ranchers is offered to the province. Investment in agriculture is recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as one of the most important and effective strategies for economic growth and poverty reduction in rural areas.

Agriculture is a supporting pillar for provincial food security, rural communities, agritourism, agrifood processing and international trade, yet B.C. continues to be the province that invests the least in the agriculture sector. According to the Agri-Food Canada 2014-15 report, B.C. invested just 5.6 percent of agriculture GDP, while the federal government invested 8.5 percent, the combination being the lowest of all provinces in Canada. Yes, we are the lowest, yet B.C. has aggressive growth proposals of $14 billion by 2017.

BCAC proposes four themes in its budget submission. They’re not necessarily in order of importance. I’ll save the important one for the last one.

[1550]

The first one is: improve collaboration between government and commodity organizations to maximize the impact and efficiency of government investment in the sector. By working with B.C. farmers and ranchers to develop and deliver government-funded initiatives, government investments invested in the sector will be more strategic and effective.

The environmental farm plan, or EFP, as we refer to it, is a great example of government and industry working cooperatively to produce effective results. Launched in 2004, the environmental farm program was developed by the federal and provincial government and farmers and ranchers to reduce agriculture’s impact on the environment. To date, almost 5,000 farmers have completed the environmental farm plan.

Since 2005, funding from federal and provincial governments of over $10 million has resulted in additional farm investments of $20 million, facilitating on-farm risk mitigation projects. This type of collaboration is now at risk in the name of good government. While the BCAC supports transparency within government and strong accountability, the RFP process is resulting in transition away from collaboration, producing poorly timed, result-limiting programs that are administratively wasteful.

Our recommendation to government is to revise its procurement policy to encourage cooperation with farm organizations that have similar objectives to the government’s.

Second, improve the proactive enforcement of existing regulations to maintain the integrity of the province’s agricultural land reserve and B.C.’s reputation as a source of safe, high-quality food. The ALR was established to preserve British Columbia’s agricultural land base. Maintaining the integrity of British Columbia’s ALR is necessary to safeguard provincial food security and grow agricultural production.

Many participants during last summer’s consultations on the ALR regulations expressed concern for the lack of resources to the ALC to proactively and adequately enforce regulations. It’s important that the ALC have the resources it needs to proactively and continually fulfil its purpose — preserving and encouraging farming. The BCAC requests increased provincial funding to support the ALC to improve compliance and enforcement activities that will maintain the integrity of the ALR.

Third, support strategic sector initiatives that will help B.C. farmers and ranchers understand and adapt to societal values to maintain and grow market acceptance and the right to farm. There’s a growing awareness by consumers expecting producers are great stewards with strong values in animal care and food production. It is vital to maintain the current farm social licence to assure B.C. consumers continue to pick B.C. products first.

Agriculture producers are challenged on many fronts, by both perceived and real farm issues, to meet the demand of change in societal values and management practices. Recent federal-provincial-territorial meetings in Charlottetown, P.E.I., identified the need for strong industry federal and provincial partnership funding to support social licence initiatives.

This was widely supported by both federal and provincial ministers. BCAC is requesting government invest to support strategic sector initiatives and programs that will help farmers and ranchers adapt to the changing societal values and build social licence to grow industry competitiveness, market access and right to farm.

Fourthly, establish an efficient and modern PST exemption for bona fide B.C. farmers that will stimulate B.C.’s agrifood economy.

[1555]

B.C. farmers and government should review PST. Ideally, we’d like to see an outright exemption of the PST.
[ Page 1975 ]
This would stimulate bona fide farms in B.C., which would make capital investments, thereby driving farm-gate sales. Agriculture through capital investments improves production, produces higher efficiencies, while promoting the environment and good stewardship.

Ultimately, this results in competitive farmers who compete on a global level. Ideally, BCAC recommends outright PST exemption for bona fide farmers. PST exemption encourages strong B.C. food security.

In conclusion, BCAC supports government’s priority to balance the budget, recognizing there are many high priorities, such as health care, that require investment. Growing a sustainable agriculture sector will help government achieve both of these objectives. Our recommendations will encourage B.C. farmers and ranchers to reinvest in the sector, bringing innovation and rejuvenation with the next generation while creating jobs for resilient rural communities and enhancing provincial food security and economic growth.

Thank you for the opportunity. Any questions?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Stan. We do.

E. Foster: Just a question for you, and we run into this a lot. I know I did when I was in local government. How are you defining a bona fide farmer-rancher?

S. Vander Waal: I think that’s something that government and industry actually need to sit down and work on to define what is a bona fide farmer. I think we all recognize that a bona fide farmer is somebody who’s committed to that. It’s a lifestyle as well as a commitment to actually producing on a farm.

E. Foster: Just a follow-up to that, if I could. Do you put a…? I mean, I know for local taxes, you’ve got to generate so much income and so on. Well, yeah, it just doesn’t work. I would be interested in your definition and support of….

R. Ens: Bona fide is defined in the tax act, so we are using the provincial regulation — $2,500 gross revenue on two acres and gross. It’s in the legislation. It is a discussion that we’ve had with ministry staff, and quite frankly, it’s a political hot potato that nobody wants to touch.

E. Foster: Exactly.

S. Vander Waal: I think we all recognize that $2,500 in gross sales is pretty hard to really be a bona fide farmer.

M. Morris: Yeah, I agree.

Just with your recommendation No. 4 in your report — but I think it was the third one that you made there — can you give me some examples of what you mean by “requesting government investment to support strategic sector initiatives and programs that will help farmers and ranchers adapt to changing societal values to get their social licence”? Give me an example of what you’re looking at there.

S. Vander Waal: What agriculture has experienced in the past is that there continues to be special interest groups attacking agriculture in the way agriculture produces, whether it be animals or crops, whether it be GMO, organic or whatever it may be. There continues to be a tax on agriculture in that way. It’s important that farmers themselves understand their stewardship responsibility, but it’s also important that the public understands what they’re asking for and, really, what farmers are doing.

Farmers are good stewards, and I think it’s important that we convey that message. It means that we have to share the way we do — how is the process? — to build and increase the comfort level.

G. Heyman: I want to focus on your recommendations respecting regulations around the agricultural land reserve and what you point to as a concern regarding resources to enforce the regulations. Would you say…? I have two questions, really. One is: has this become more marked in recent years or the recent couple of years?

Second, do you perceive now, with the changes to the agricultural land reserve and the zone system, any increased pressure that connects with this recommendation of yours? Or just pressure on agricultural land generally?

S. Vander Waal: Maybe I could start by answering your second question. Then I’ll go to the first.

I think the new regulations give clarity in terms of how the regulations are to be administered. What we’re concerned about is: is there enough funding to actually administer the regulations? Regulations are great, but they need enforcement to actually be effective. That’s what we’re looking for.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Claire, last question.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your presentation. I have two questions. One is on the….

[1600]

In my constituency, I see a lot of young couples starting farming, small farmers. I represent the North Island, so the north half of Vancouver Island. It’s young families starting farming — whether it’s a small holding or whether they’re getting into some livestock. I’m wondering what sort of supports you think can be given to them to encourage them to be able to stay on the land and make that work.

My other question. In your introduction to your paper, you’ve got the disparity of funding by federal
[ Page 1976 ]
and provincial and how low down we are. I notice that Newfoundland is huge. I’m wondering if this is representative or whether in the Atlantic provinces, the investment in agriculture also includes aquaculture or if they are separate. Are they separate in B.C.?

S. Vander Waal: Thanks for the question. I’m going to let Reg answer both questions, but I’m going to say one thing. As well as in the past, I believe…. My wife and I were exactly that story of the young couple that started a farming operation. I still think there’s a huge future in agriculture. There are many opportunities. But Reg, maybe you can answer the question.

R. Ens: I think there are two things that we would suggest. One is support for associations and that — the communication. The FARM Community Council and the Farmers Institute are in desperate need of funding. Small-lot farming is one of our members, and they don’t have the capacity. The resources…. The Internet is a wonderful thing, but that resource to help people collaborate and work together is one.

The second with that is cooperation with larger farmers. There’s an initiative — I think it’s in the Comox area — where they got some food directly from local small farmers into the provincial health system. One of the comments made by the coordinator of that was that they needed large farms to help the smaller farms with the infrastructure and the capacity. So if there are things that we can do to encourage working together, that’s a key one for the young farmers.

As far as the question on the statistics and that, these are from Agriculture Canada, so I believe they are the same for all of Canada — just agriculture, not agrifood. One of the disparities that you would see is that in Newfoundland, primary agriculture is small, so a little dollar would result in a higher percentage, probably. But if you dig down lower and look at a ratio of the investment as a proportion of the provincial budget in each area versus the contribution of agriculture to the provincial GDP in each area, other than New Brunswick, B.C. is the lowest.

C. James (Deputy Chair): We’ve run out of time. Thank you, Reg, and thank you, Stan, for your presentation and thank you for your work.

S. Vander Waal: We’ll see you all at Ag Day, November 3.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Exactly.

Next we have the Ending Violence Association of B.C. — Kate Rossiter. Welcome, Kate.

You have 15 minutes in total — ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions. We’ll get started.

K. Rossiter: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Kate Rossiter. I’m the research and projects manager with the Ending Violence Association of B.C., also known as EVA B.C.

EVA B.C. is a provincial non-profit organization that supports the work of over 240 victim-serving and other anti-violence programs across the province with consultation and analysis, resource development, training, research and education. We work closely with RCMP E division, the B.C. municipal chiefs of police, all the relevant social policy ministers and with many others to address community safety. We work hard to seek solutions to critical issues related to sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the pressing needs we have identified for women and children in this province who are impacted by violence.

British Columbia has seen more domestic violence–related deaths in the past two years than in the previous five. According to the B.C. Coroners Service December 2014 report, domestic violence accounted for the deaths of 113 women and nine children in B.C. over the last ten years. There were 28 domestic violence–related deaths in 2014 alone. The citizens of British Columbia, in the first six months of 2015, already have witnessed 17 domestic violence–related deaths.

These numbers, of course, do not speak to the murdered and missing indigenous women of B.C. and the countless communities coping with the epidemic of violence against women. Hundreds of others — families, friends, co-workers and communities — have been devastated by the loss of the people they loved, including children who are now without their mothers and some who have become orphaned.

[1605]

We have learned that in almost every case of a domestic violence–related death in this province, the victim was not receiving community-based victim services.

Despite the staggering number of domestic violence–related deaths, the B.C. government has not increased funding to the very programs in place across the province that could prevent many of these deaths. Domestic homicides are the most preventable of all homicides. Funding for community-based victim services must be increased so that every community in B.C. has adequate supports in place.

We also must not lose sight of the fact that with every homicide, there are thousands more cases of domestic and sexual violence that are reported to the police. For every reported case, there are tens of thousands that remain unreported, with women and children continuing to live in danger. In fact, there are 60,000 sexual and physical assaults perpetrated against women in B.C. each year.

We know that domestic violence cases are the most numerous case type for B.C. Crown counsel, compris-
[ Page 1977 ]
ing 14 percent of all the cases they receive. In 2012, the Cowper report stated that domestic violence charges by Crown counsel had increased from 9,000 in 2003 to 12,000 in 2011.

Sexual assault, which is the most under-reported violent crime in Canada, is also on the rise, with an estimated one-third of all Canadian women being victimized in this way at some point in their lives. Demand for community-based victim services in B.C. is increasing steadily.

The Premier has been calling for B.C. to become a violence-free province, and we support this call fully. However, we cannot do this without investment, without money. Policy alone does not save lives. People and programs and services and coordination of services saves lives.

EVA B.C., through its community coordination for women’s safety program, has been helping communities develop interagency case assessment teams, known as ICATs, which are cross-sector partnerships that include criminal justice, child welfare, health, and community-based victim service workers, who work together with a goal of keeping domestic violence victims and their children safe. It is our belief that community-based supports are key to women’s and children’s safety — in fact, key to their survival.

Funding for these services has not kept pace with increasing demand and awareness. We have seen consistent spending increases in B.C. for police, health and education over the last ten years, but increases in the anti-violence sector have been almost nonexistent.

Not having adequately funded anti-violence services creates barriers for women who are attempting to leave violent situations and for women trying to recover from sexual assault. The anti-violence sector is now facing the introduction of an open procurement process for services that are already in place and have been doing effective work for 20 to 30 years.

We at EVA B.C. have grave concerns about the implementation of such a process. Collaboration and coordination among community-based victim services programs is contrary to the imposition of a procurement process that requires competition for a static amount of already inadequate funding. Requiring existing programs to compete for what has already been determined to be insufficient resources to meet demand will strain relationships, which could result in serious detrimental impacts for ongoing collaboration and increased risk to women and children.

There is no question that the current programs are not funded to the extent that they need to be to meet demand. We know there is a moral imperative to provide supportive services for women who have experienced violence, but there also is an important economic imperative. Not investing in early intervention and prevention results in increased costs for government, as the impacts deepen and the multigenerational cycle of violence continues.

In 2012, the Department of Justice estimated the economic impact of domestic violence in Canada to be $7.4 billion annually, a figure that includes estimates for pain and suffering as well as direct health and justice system–related costs and lost productivity.

Researchers estimate that the economic cost of children’s exposure to domestic violence also is in the billions. Women who are not able to escape violent situations or who face inadequate supports when they experience violence suffer a wide range of serious, ongoing health, social and economic consequences, as do their children.

Directly or indirectly, the immediate and longer-term consequences of violence against women have enormous ramifications for the rest of society in the areas of health, education, social services, labour, policing, courts, housing, etc.

Services for women and children save lives, and many of these programs do much more than that. Community-based victim services, counselling and outreach programs provide not only intervention support to women and their families in times of crisis but also carry out invaluable prevention work focused on breaking the multigenerational cycle of violence.

We have two key measures we recommend that you consider for immediate implementation. First: increased funding for existing community-based services and the creation of more community-based victim services programs.

[1610]

Community-based victim services programs have not received an increase in funding for 20 years, yet awareness about domestic and sexual violence has never been greater. The fact is that the funding structure has remained virtually unchanged for decades, and we’re now facing an increase in domestic violence–related deaths in B.C.

These deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands more women who experience domestic and sexual violence on a daily basis throughout our province. We must increase the number of community-based victim services to ensure that there are supports for every woman in every community in B.C. who is in need. These services are key to women’s and children’s safety, and the province must increase the number of programs and better fund existing programs.

The second recommendation is around the capacity for more interagency case assessment teams, or ICATs. A number of inquests and inquiries, including the domestic violence death review panel’s Report to the Chief Coroner of B.C. in 2010, have stressed the fact that safety for women and children can be improved through collaborative interagency responses. Safety is achieved by legally sharing risk-related information from multiple sources so that a more fulsome risk assessment can be performed and better risk management and safety plans can be put in place.
[ Page 1978 ]

Over the past two years, the community coordination for women’s safety has helped set up 25 interagency case assessment teams. However, capacity funding is needed so that CCWS, through the provision of resources and training, can continue to support communities to increase the number of ICATs and to strengthen the capacity and expertise of existing teams. This work would be undertaken in partnership with police, RCMP and other involved sectors, including the Ministry of Children and Family Development, health and income assistance.

I want to thank you for your time and attention today. Please know that the Ending Violence Association of B.C. wants to do everything it can to provide government with accurate information and analysis that can assist with decision-making on issues pertinent to the anti-violence sector. We are here as a resource for you, and our door is always open. We look forward to future collaborations as we work together to build a safer British Columbia for all.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Kate, for your presentation.

M. Morris: I’m certainly a fan of the community-based victim services program. I’m surprised — no funding increases for 20 years, you say?

K. Rossiter: In terms of core funding. There have been increases here and there, and there’s always project-related funding that is given to organizations. But in terms of core funding for the programs, we’ve seen reduction of funding around sexual assault services in B.C. Meanwhile, Ontario has just invested lots of money — or committed to investing lots of money — in sexual violence programming.

We’ve lost a lot of money for training for anti-violence workers. Many people are coming into the sector now and not being adequately trained to do the work that they’re needed to do. Meanwhile, we’re seeing a lot more requirements for coordination and collaboration. Community-based programs are being asked to do more with less, or with the same amount of money.

M. Morris: Just one more follow-up. I certainly relied on community-based victim services programs when I was in the force.

The ICATs program. In the interior of B.C., for example, give me a couple of places where we have that in motion.

K. Rossiter: The ICATs actually emerged from Vernon. That’s where they originated. There is a strong ICAT in Vernon. That was the first one, so it’s been around for some time now. We have seen the growth. There are 21 active ICATs at this moment, but there are 25 that exist in the province.

We did a recent review of those programs and saw that in the last several years, they’ve actually reviewed over 600 cases involving 1,701 individuals, so that’s perpetrators, victims and children. There was one death. We believe that that speaks to the impact of the ICATs in saving lives.

It’s difficult to measure a life not lost, but we do believe that…. Those are the highest-risk cases that are actually brought into ICATs, so only those cases where there is a high risk of serious bodily hard or death. Of those 1,700 individuals, 600 cases involving over 600 children, we’ve actually seen only one death in the province.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you so much for your work. I certainly have seen the organization out and about in the community.

[1615]

It seems every time we have a horrific case of somebody being murdered at home — often the mother, and sometimes the children — that governments are wont to say: “We will follow all the answers. We will solve this. We will crack down on this.” Big statements. What I wondered is: how do we actually measure success?

We can all say that we want assaults on women to end, but unless you actually have a scorecard, it’s just words. To show that we’re actually getting there, how would you suggest we measure this? Are we getting to success? Certainly, I take your point that a death doesn’t…. Reducing the deaths but keeping the violence — it’s still a lot of violence. Also, what do you think is behind what seems to be a shocking and horrifying increase in these cases?

K. Rossiter: In terms of the measurement question, I’ll answer that first. I think it’s difficult to measure it, because as I said, it’s difficult to say that a life is not lost. How do you measure that?

The other thing is that in cases of sexual violence, we might say that an increase in reports is successful, whereas…. You might think that a decrease in reports is a good thing. But in fact, in sexual violence cases, an increase in reporting can be a success measure. It is difficult to tease that out.

We have seen increasing self-reports in the area of sexual violence, but actually the rates of police-reported sexual violence are down across Canada. We believe that more people are disclosing more, and there’s a difference between disclosure and reporting officially. But more disclosures and more reporting can be a success measure in some ways, because people are actually talking about violence.

We’ve seen, anecdotally, more individuals saying that they anticipate an increase in those numbers because we’ve got cases like Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby, and women are inspired to come forward because of those cases. We anticipate that those numbers may well go up.

I understand the question about…. Yes, we want to save lives, but there’s lots of domestic violence still hap-
[ Page 1979 ]
pening. Your question was: what’s behind this increase in the last couple of years?

It’s difficult to say. We have seen quite a significant spike in the last two years in B.C. None of the cases that we’re aware of where a woman has died or her children have died…. They haven’t been well connected to community-based victim assistance programs in the province prior to those deaths. So we believe that coordination and collaboration is very critical — the more information that’s shared between partners working with an individual who’s at risk, the more that information is available so that we can use it to support her and save a life or have her find safety.

In many cases, MCFD may have information, or Health may have information, but if people aren’t talking, then that whole picture, the puzzle, is not well known, and she can fall through the cracks easily.

C. James (Deputy Chair): We’re running out of time, so I’m going to ask Simon and then Claire to put their questions on the record and then ask you to send the information in, if you can, by October 15 at the end of the day.

S. Gibson: Super brief. What you’re talking is a critical issue in our society, and I think we all acknowledge that. Our police chief in Abbotsford, Bob Rich, said he could lay off half his police department if only women lived in this town. It’s an indictment, really. Virtually all of what you’re talking about is perpetrated by males.

This is further to Spencer’s query as to the culture that permits this kind of ethos, to allow males to exhibit aggressive behaviour. By many people, it’s just kind of acknowledging: “That’s being guys.”

Now don’t hear me saying that I agree with that in any way, but I think there’s a part of that, unfortunately, out there, with the entertainment that we have today and men struggling to find out who they are. Part of that is manifest in violent behaviour, sometimes toward the people they care for the most.

I’d be interested in some of the literature on that because I see that, especially in my university students. Many of my male students didn’t understand what it meant to be a male. Anyway, that’s enough.

C. Trevena: Thank you very much for your presentation. Very briefly, I think they are shocking statistics you’ve given us. I wondered whether you can, obviously, just send to us the amount — when you say increase funding for community-based victim services, how much we need, how much to make this system work. Similarly with the interagency coordination teams. I’ve seen them at work, and I think they’re absolutely fabulous. How would we get that going?

[1620]

My other question is: when you talk about the service procurement process, is that for community-based victim service, and if so, is it being done regionally, or is it being done centrally? How is that procurement process working, and how are you navigating it?

My final question, since you’re submitting responses. We did hear the Premier talk about a violence-free B.C., which is something we all strive to. Did you hear of any dollar figure coming towards that at the time?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Kate. I’m sorry we’re out of time, but if you get that information to us, we’ll make sure it gets to every member on the committee. Thank you so much for your work as well. Thank you for the presentation.

K. Rossiter: Thank you for your time.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Next we have Clean Energy B.C., Paul Kariya.

Welcome, Paul. I know you’ve presented before, but just as a reminder: 15 minutes — ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions.

P. Kariya: Thank you Carole, Members. I imagine the clock is already ticking, so I’ll just get right into it. You guys have had a long day.

Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today. I commend all members of the committee and the three parties in the Legislature for wanting to tackle the challenge of our times: human-induced climate change. I applaud the government for its creation of the climate leadership team and its high priority to renew its climate action plan.

I represent the Clean Energy Association of B.C., which is comprised of private sector electricity developers and operators in clean and renewable energy technology such as wind, small hydro, biomass, biogas, geothermal, marine and natural gas generation. Our 200-plus members also include a talented supply chain of engineers, lawyers, environmental monitors and the construction sector.

Together, our members supply approximately 20 percent of the power on B.C. Hydro’s power grid today. B.C. Hydro, most recently in its annual report, notes that the average blended cost of this power is $73 per megawatt hour.

Our members also include ten First Nations. This is an industry association which has First Nations as members. I don’t think there are many others in British Columbia that can make that claim.

I’m told that, recently, cabinet ministers who met with First Nations on September 9 and 10 were overwhelmingly lobbied by First Nation leaders for more clean energy opportunities. I heard that from three cabinet ministers. In fact, they said: “Can you turn it off, Paul?”

The clean energy sector is built upon the same core principles that First Nations embrace. Protect the en-
[ Page 1980 ]
vironment. Build legacy infrastructure. Enable sustainable economic development. That’s what we stand for.

The last power call in this province was in 2008, awarded in 2010. The build from that call will be completed soon, by the middle of 2017. Some 25 projects, worth in excess of about $5 billion in capital expenditures, will have been successfully built, on time and on budget.

After that, it goes very quiet for our sector. There are no other procurements planned. Apart from a very small standing-offer program, there are no other B.C. Hydro opportunities for our sector, and our only buyer is B.C. Hydro in this market.

What’s the vision of the future for Clean Energy B.C.? What I mean by that is the big picture for our province. Our vision is that B.C. has reinforced and reinvigorated its leadership position in response to the ever-growing concerns and impacts of climate change and our economy has made the transition from a fossil fuel–dependent economy to a balanced one — one which increasingly utilizes its clean electricity endowment.

First Nations, in rural economic development, have wind, solar, run of river, biomass, geothermal and marine technologies harnessed in sync with ecosystem conservation and environmental protection.

In the transition away from fossil fuels, our LNG, oil and gas, mining, forestry and urban sectors have flourished and capitalized upon innovation and investment from our research universities, clean-tech incubators and a flood of outside investment coming into the province. We become the envy of Canada and the world as we brand ourselves as a unique place.

[1625]

We have become a clean society, from our food supplies — be it seafood or agriculture — our major industries, our transportation networks and our cities to even our film sector and rock concerts. That will all have a clean moniker. We will become a clean society. That’s the vision that we in CEBC have.

How to achieve this vision? It starts with a plan. But we need a national clean energy plan with electricity and transmission chapters. We also need a made-in-B.C. plan with chapters that include First Nations, rural centres, the role of fossil fuels within the transition that we need to make and a role for the clean and renewable energy sector. The plan will set out objectives for energy exports, attracting load, conservation and so forth. This is achievable, and the government’s empanelling of the climate leadership team is a great start.

Let me turn to a summary of some of our recommendations. It starts with an investment with the next budget. Establish a $100 million strategic infrastructure fund to encourage the use of clean and renewable electricity. Establish a clean infrastructure fund to support increased electrification. Industry and communities could apply for funding to help cover transmission and interconnection costs for their electricity projects.

Secondly, establish a $50 million clean and renewable energy business strategy fund to support emerging businesses to compete in the growing — what our research finds — $780 billion market for clean energy technologies. This could be established in partnership with the federal government or with us or with other private sector interests to secure the necessary start-up and, in some cases, venture capital.

Another recommendation would be in terms of barriers to electrification. Extend the grid for suppliers and customers, so supply and load customers, especially in the northeast to the gas fields. That will make a great contribution for British Columbia to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction targets and climate action goals. Identify key electricity sectors government should explore for removing barriers to electrification.

Maybe a fourth recommendation that I’ll read out is remote electrification. Government should work with B.C. Hydro and the government of Canada to develop a program to electrify B.C.’s diesel- and gasoline-dependent communities with clean energy projects. We hear so often…. This comes from so many sources, but we don’t seem to make much progress on it. I think we have some ideas on what we might do. The program will not only reduce the carbon footprint of off-grid communities, but the clean energy projects would also act as economic drivers for those communities.

B.C. has a clean and renewable energy advantage. Perhaps there are no perfect solutions. However, there are pragmatic ones and achievable ones. President Obama in the U.S. has demonstrated this with his recent comprehensive clean power plan. We can assail him, and many have, for waiting until near the end of his second term to take action.

Some will criticize his plan, particularly on the fossil fuel and oil and gas front, for focusing too much on reducing demand for fossil fuels and not enough on shutting down supply. But the key point is he set out a plan and is making investments in this strong plan, one which, incidentally, has drawn China in, in terms of reducing its GHGs. With his clean and renewable energy plans, Obama has potentially broken the logjam on international climate politics as we all move forward towards the conference in Paris.

I think, within our sphere of influence, British Columbia can do likewise. From a budget 2016 perspective, B.C. can get started by establishing two leadership funds, as I mentioned before: the $100 million infrastructure fund and the $50 million clean and renewable energy business strategy fund.

Maybe in the interest of making sure that there’s time for lots of Q and A, or as many as can get in, Madam Chair, I’ll stop there.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Paul.
[ Page 1981 ]

G. Heyman: Thank you, Paul. Certainly, I think any activity by members of CEBC to raise the range of energy options and put a focus on the debate of choices that we have in B.C. is useful, not harmful.

[1630]

About a year ago Clean Energy B.C. commissioned a report from London Economics International that showed some great economic opportunities from a suite of clean energy projects that would be spread around communities throughout B.C. and showed that it could be quite cost-effective in comparison to a well-known megaproject in northeast B.C. as well as other options.

I also know that technology is changing quite rapidly. I’m wondering if you might talk a little bit about how, even in the past year, some of those opportunities may be even more enhanced than they were a year ago. I know there are advances in wind turbine technology and dropping costs in solar. I also know from talking to some people in the wind sector that they have been trying to get B.C. Hydro to use some of the more recent figures on the costs of turbines in terms of the viable options that they set forward in the resource options database.

P. Kariya: Let me begin by commending the Minister of Energy, Bill Bennett, for the dialogue that we had through him and with B.C. Hydro through 2014. It wasn’t satisfactory to my sector in terms of outcome, and I’ve expressed my displeasure to the minister. But I do concede that governments are elected to make decisions, and the cabinet of the day has made a decision regarding the project that you didn’t mention, which I haven’t mentioned either.

We did commission a significant study. I should say that it got a review. There are different ways to cost and analyze. This is not an exact science.

Summarizing very quickly, B.C. Hydro has three ways of doing its costing. One is a very sophisticated optimization modelling program they have, and they shared some of it with us. I think, in the end, they would conclude that we were pretty close on price, taking a basket of wind and hydro and other geothermal projects and what they were offsetting against. That’s the optimizer model.

They have, also, two other ones. One is maybe the one that, in the end, held sway. It’s something called unit energy cost. There, I think, in the dialogue…. I can quote the minister from one meeting late in the summer, saying: “I have a very tough choice, because you’ve shown with the data that you’ve given that we’re close.” What happened afterwards…. There were other factors, I guess, that government brought in. Indeed, in all of those discussions, the way it was modelled, no one could argue that wind had come down drastically, that solar was starting to make inroads. One could only turn to the U.S. and say: “This is significant.” Similarly on the other technologies.

Maybe, summarizing it…. This is somewhat controversial in characterization, but in the project we haven’t named — and you have a graph — you have a levelized cost that goes like that. That’s what’s done. We argued, “Should you be looking at 70 years or 100 years?” because if you take it out longer, then that cost drops.

The projects that I represent aren’t given that length of time, even though our hydro projects will last the same as B.C. Hydro’s projects. The maximum projects, except for one that’s given 60 years, are typically 40. The others are 25.

Here’s what happens with wind, for example. You only go out 25 years. Yes, there was a price when these were negotiated in 2008, and we were assailed as they were being high. But they will end in 25 years, and then there will be a price drop. If the government wants to redo that pricing, they can do it at year 25. This is the renegotiation of EPAs. Similarly with hydro at 40.

With our hydro projects, you don’t have that. With that other project, you go out for as long as that, and unfortunately, in a time with declining prices because of improved technology, we’re locked in.

Nobody argues that the pricing has gone down. In fact, I had a call today from the ministry, saying: “We want to eliminate the wind participation holiday.” There’s a rent that government will charge. They’re already wanting to talk to us about that. Part of it is because they’re using the argument: “Because wind costs have dropped so much, your members won’t need that.” My comeback was: “But there hasn’t been a contract let since 2008. Why would you do that now?” Their point was: “Because it has dropped so much, you guys can afford to pay it.”

C. James (Deputy Chair): Paul, I’m going to stop you there because I’ve got two questions and about a minute and a half left.

[1635]

E. Foster: Some of the stuff has been answered. You mentioned some of the smaller, remote communities. You and I have had this conversation. There’s one area, I think, where the smaller projects will be a huge asset — in the mines and that sort of thing.

My other question is about tidal power and kind of where we are with the technology, because that’s an inexhaustible supply of power, really. Where are we with that?

P. Kariya: Probably in terms of the curve or the stack of technologies, it’s not as efficient as wind and solar and those in most situations. A big part of it is because of the need for transmission, where it can be located and what you have to build to attach to it. It, too, though, is on a declining cost curve as more of these things get built, and they are being built in different parts of the world.
[ Page 1982 ]
The technology is getting better and better. We have terrific sites. It’s just that they’re not close to the transmission network.

C. James (Deputy Chair): John, last question.

J. Yap: Thanks, Paul. Eric asked about tidal power. I’d like to ask about another renewable source for energy: our great supply of fibre and bioenergy, biomass. You listed biomass and liquid fuels. Where are we with that?

I’m coming from the context that earlier in the public hearings, we received a presentation from the B.C. Bioenergy Network on their work. What’s your perspective?

P. Kariya: There’s another fuel that we have in great abundance that can be used. There are transportation difficulties in that, that would make it challenging. Maybe the most controversial statement I’ll make on this is that probably our greatest difficulty is rooted in our history. The way we do tenuring in forestry — we did that for a reason, back in our history. It probably prevents access and opportunity for other uses. Tenure holders are reluctant to — and, in fact, are competitors…. Most of the pulp and paper and forest companies are, themselves, self-generators. Do they really want others running around in their backyards, so to speak?

We have challenges with tenuring. We have challenges with distance and transportation. Technology, again, continues to improve. The advantage of wood waste biomass is that it is a terrific job generator for First Nations, and they would love to have that opportunity.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much, Paul, for your presentation.

Next, we have the Canadian Cancer Society — Barbara Kaminsky and Khairun Jivani.

Welcome. As you heard from others, you have 15 minutes — ten minutes for your presentation and five minutes for questions. I will give you the high sign at two minutes, so you’ve got two minutes left.

K. Jivani: Thank you, hon. Members, for having us today. On behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society, I would like to sincerely thank you for this opportunity for us to share with you today some of our thoughts on the 2016 provincial budget.

We would like to take this opportunity to discuss our recommendations for advancing public health and public health revenue through tobacco tax increases and a tobacco retailer licensing fee. As you know, I am Khairun Jivani, director of health promotion and cancer prevention. Joining me today is our chief executive officer, Barbara Kaminsky.

As Canada’s largest national cancer charity, the Canadian Cancer Society reaches more than thousands and thousands of Canadians, as well as British Columbians, across regions and communities, across all nationalities and ages. The Canadian Cancer Society’s vision is to create a world where no Canadian fears cancer. One of the key pillars of that vision is prevention. The society contributes to prevention initiatives in communities across B.C. and contributes to cancer prevention research.

Specific to today’s presentation, our organization has invested $2.5 million in tobacco prevention research and is poised with leading evidence to help inform healthy public policies. We congratulate and commend this government for their support in our vision and commitment to prevention. We especially appreciate the Minister of Finance’s support with past tobacco tax adjustments and commitment to the Canadian Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Centre.

With a smoking rate of approximately 14 percent, the lowest in Canada, B.C. certainly has cause to celebrate. However, despite significant progress, tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of premature death, taking about 6,000 British Columbian lives each year.

[1640]

Furthermore, tobacco remains a significant financial burden, estimated at costing the province $2 billion annually in direct and indirect health care costs.

The society has a strategy and a plan to reduce the B.C. smoking rates to 9 percent by 2020, aligning with the B.C. Ministry of Health’s goal of reducing the levels to 10 percent by the same year. To achieve these goals, today we present to you three recommendations for your consideration.

B. Kaminsky: Thanks, Khairun. If I understand correctly, this is the last day of the presentations to the committee?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Tomorrow.

B. Kaminsky: Tomorrow. Okay. So this is not quite the end?

C. James (Deputy Chair): Not quite the end. It’s the end of our day today, but not the end of our presentations.

B. Kaminsky: Okay. Well, I appreciate your forbearance and your patience. There’s a lot, I’m sure, that you’ve been exposed to. But I believe that our presentation is a little bit different from those that you’re likely to hear from others in that everybody that comes to you will have very good causes that require further funding and investment.

We have some suggestions that will actually raise revenues, and that’s not just a question of getting more money for government. It will allow you to do progressive, healthy public policy that will have a positive impact on the health of British Columbians.
[ Page 1983 ]

The three recommendations are increasing the tobacco taxes; implementing a tobacco retail licensing fee; and with part of the additional revenues that those two actions would produce, you would then be able to invest in a comprehensive tobacco control strategy. That would allow you to see that continued decline in tobacco consumption here in B.C.

The first one is around increasing the tobacco tax by at least $7 per carton. You’ll see on page 5 of our brief a comparison of tobacco taxation rates across Canada. When you look at the context, they have western Canada. Saskatchewan is probably a good one to model after, so there’s room for us to grow in British Columbia.

We also know that the most effective way of affecting smoking rates in youth is to increase tobacco taxes, because they’re particularly price sensitive. You know that the tobacco industry has to continue to market to youth in one way or another, because their regular customers die off. The only way they can continue in their industry is to lure young smokers. So what you do from a social policy point of view to be able to reduce the impact on youth will have long-lasting, positive consequences.

We also know that…. As you look at tobacco taxation, you should also look at the roll-your-own tobacco. Based on a loophole or a historical anomaly, you really have an opportunity to look at doubling the taxation in that area, because tobacco that’s produced now for roll-your-own is a lot more strong than it was when these taxes were first introduced. So again, you see in our brief a comparison to other provinces that would produce substantial increased revenues and, again, have a salutary effect on smoking rates.

Any time we talk about increasing tobacco taxes, there will be those who come forward to say: “Oh, but contraband will increase. The smuggling will just be out of control.” Any credible source of information about smuggling in B.C. indicates it’s a non-issue. It’s an issue in central Canada — that’s true — but not here in British Columbia.

So if you’ve had presentations from other stakeholders that say we’ve got this terrible contraband problem in B.C., we would welcome an opportunity to look at whatever research they allege supports this point of view. The best I can say about any research I’m aware of in that regard is that its methodology is opaque. I have other words, too, but “opaque” is the polite one.

There are also the tobacco retailer licensing fees as a means to further enhance revenues. Yes, indeed, currently you do have licensing for tobacco retailers, but you don’t charge a fee, and other jurisdictions do. Once again, that’s a lost opportunity from a revenue point of view.

When you have further revenues from this area, it can allow you to ensure that if you do need to increase enforcement — for sales to minors, for example — you have some capability to do that so that you’ll get more responsible retail behaviour.

The third recommendation is that with some of those incremental revenues that you’ll get from the tobacco taxation and the licensing, you should invest in a more comprehensive provincial tobacco control strategy.

We very much applaud the government for having the goal of 10 percent smoking from about the current 14 percent we have. We actually think that looking towards the single-digit 9 percent is even better, but 10 percent is still pretty good.

[1645]

But you can’t get there on a hope and a prayer and, frankly, on the level of funding that the B.C. government currently provides to tobacco-control strategies. We’re very, very meagre in terms of support for tobacco control through government channels in B.C., and again, if you look at other jurisdictions, you’ll see considerable means of growth there.

What we’re offering you is an opportunity to increase revenues in government, but to do it from the point of view of actually having a positive impact on the health of British Columbians. We know tobacco is responsible for shortening the lives of so many British Columbians. At least half of the people who smoke will have their lives shortened and their quality of life reduced. This will be one policy measure that you can introduce that could help reduce that impact.

We welcome your further review of this information and are open for conversation.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much.

M. Morris: A couple of things. First, with respect to increased taxes and the relationship to contraband and smuggling, I used to investigate that back in my younger years. I don’t know how recent it is, but I think it was within the last year or so that there was a survey done of smuggling issues in B.C. Since the tobacco tax was hiked, I believe, in 2009, they’ve seen an increase of something like 14 percent or more in the number of smuggled cigarettes coming into B.C. from central Canada.

This information was given to us — whether it was this committee or another meeting that I was at earlier on this year, so it’s fairly new — that smuggled cigarettes or illicit cigarettes are probably spreading right through North America and down into South America from central Canada. So it’s quite prolific, and it does cause some concern for law enforcement authorities. You know, the cost of enforcement is pretty significant in that, so it’s something that we’d have to take into consideration if we were going to go in that specific direction.

The other question I have is on smoking. You know, I wish we could get rid of it altogether, because I am certainly not a fan of it myself, and I’ve had family members
[ Page 1984 ]
that have passed away as a result of lung cancer from smoking lots over their lifetime.

Marijuana smoking has become prevalent in the news, and we’ve seen all kinds of arguments for and against the medical benefits of smoking marijuana. I’m a skeptic myself. I haven’t seen any studies in that direction, but what’s the position of the Canadian Cancer Society with respect to marijuana smoking in B.C or across the country?

B. Kaminsky: We have position statements in the Canadian Cancer Society that represent our perspective nationwide, so we don’t have a B.C. statement and then, say, an Ontario statement.

Obviously, there needs to be more research — which, at first blush, could be seen as a copout. But it’s a reflection of the complexity of the situation. We do know that for a lot of terminally ill patients — patients that are in considerable pain — it can relieve some of the unfortunate symptoms that they have. There is some evidence that the way in which people inhale marijuana, it goes deeply into their lungs, so the type of lung cancer they get might be a little bit different and more severe than what a regular smoker might.

There’s not enough to convince us to come out with a dramatic statement on this yet. But, as I said, further research is required. We aren’t promoting it.

S. Gibson: Well, I was just going to pick up. I have some information here with regard to contraband tobacco. If I thought that just raising the taxes, a guy would go to the store and say: “You know what? I was going to buy some cigarettes today, but they’re 20 cents more. I guess I’ll switch to chocolate….”

I’m a little bit dubious of that. But it says here in the study that was reported to us…. Actually, that was that study we had, Mike. The convenience store association plus UBCM picked up the study. It says that 31.8 percent of illegal tobacco use in Vancouver is contraband.

That’s not a small percentage. At SFU, my alma mater, it’s 51 percent. You know, I think we all have friends around this table who are absolutely addicted to cigarette smoking. They can’t shake it. They would love to, but it’s so addictive. I’m not sure whether raising the taxes or raising it a little bit here and there is going to make a whole lot of difference.

[1650]

I think you’re on the right track. I love what you guys are doing. I support it, but I kind of agree with my colleague a little bit here. I’m not sure if it’s the solution.

B. Kaminsky: Well, it has proven to be effective in the past and in other jurisdictions.

I believe I know the study you’re referring to. We’d love to see the actual source data and the methodology and the sample size. It’s summarized very, very briefly on their website. We haven’t been able to get the detailed methodology. Anybody who wants to produce evidence — it’s wise on their part to share the methodology. As I say, the problem is the opaque nature of that study.

C. Trevena: We’ve also heard from various organizations about, perhaps, bringing in taxes for sugary drinks and to raise money that way — put people off smoking, deal with obesity.

Now you have another presentation that said: “Well, it’s not going to work. We’ve got such a large population right by the U.S. border, and they can just pop over the border and get what they want.” I’m not talking about smuggled cigarettes but cross-border shopping. You bring in a carton. You can have another carton somewhere else that you’ve already opened in your car — however it is.

Is that an issue you worry about, or do you think it’s just too small to concern yourself with when you’re talking about raising the cost of a carton of cigarettes?

B. Kaminsky: There are all sorts of things where people…. If you want to spend the time and gas, go to the United States. You can get a lot of things more cheaply, whether it’s cheese, eggs, liquor, whatever. And okay, a proportion of people will do that. But I don’t think that constitutes the majority of their consumption.

This is the nature of Canada, isn’t it? We’ve got this ribbon of population right adjacent to the U.S. border. I don’t know. Just speaking personally, I don’t do much shopping in the States. My time is more valuable to me than spending all that time waiting in traffic.

G. Heyman: I’ll quickly comment that I don’t notice many people who cross-border shop fleeing across the border to access U.S. health care.

B. Kaminsky: There is that.

G. Heyman: First of all, I want to thank you for your work. I think everyone on this committee takes the issue of tobacco smoking and its impacts on individuals as well as the health care system very seriously. Any information you give us about studies that purport — that aren’t scientifically valid studies — to discourage raising taxes will be useful in deliberations.

In the end, I think points that are made about enforcement are valid points. But we know that the costs of health care are huge, and any measures that we can take to protect people’s health by discouraging and inhibiting tobacco smoking will actually have a very direct economic benefit to the provincial budget, even if it’s offset by some initial added costs to make that happen.

B. Kaminsky: Yes. Further to the economic argument, as we improve people’s productivity in the workplace because they’re not ill, they can contribute more to our bottom line in society.
[ Page 1985 ]

This is not the time and place, but at some point, it would be great for us to be able to do a presentation to either this committee or elsewhere. Health economist Hans Krueger has worked with us in looking at how we could actually bend the health care cost curve by very small relative changes in smoking rates, obesity rates, physical activity rates. Very modest changes can make a big, big impact accumulated over time.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much, Barbara, Khairun, for your presentation, and thank you for your work as well. Very much appreciated.

B. Kaminsky: Pleasure. Thanks for having us, and thanks for staying awake. It’s a lot to go through.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Could I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, everybody. We’re done.

The committee adjourned at 4:54 p.m.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

Copyright © 2015: British Columbia Hansard Services, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada